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THE MICROCOSM 



OTHER POEMS 



ABRAHAM COLES, M. D., LL. D. 

II 

Author of "Dies Ir.« in Thikteen Versions," "Old Gems in New 
Settings," "The Evangel in Verse," Etc. 



New York : 
I). APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1881. 




i^ro) 



76 i^^1 



Copyright, 1880, 
By ABRAHAM COLES. 



ADVERTISER PRINTING HOUSE. 
NEWARK, N. J. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, vii 

PREFACE, ix 

THE MICROCOSM 15 

COSMOS : 

Psalm civ. — T-ivo Versions, ..... 83 

God in Nature 99 

Morning Hymn, 107 

CHRISTMAS: 

Advent Hymn, 113 

The Redeemer. — 1841, 114 

Soul Liberty. — -1342, 118 

NEW YEAR : 

Eternity. — 1S41, 125 

Future Life. — 1842, 132 

Life's Mysteries. — 1843, 139 

account.\bility. — 1844, i44 

The Flight of Pegasus. — 1853, .... 152 

All Hail !— 185S, 170 

NATIONAL LYRICS: 

Fourth of July. — 1851, 185 

Mount Vernon Visited, 186 

Arm of the Lord, Awake ! 189 

Our Country's Banner, 191 

Our Cause 192 

Hymn for the National Fasi, .... 195 

The Nation Saved, 197 

Two Hundred Years Ago, 19S 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Forefathers' Day, 200 

Centennial Anthem, ...... 209 

The Land of the Free, 213 

My Native Land, 215 

POEMS OF PLACES : 

Niagara, ......... 219 

Return after Absence, 222 

A Sabbath at Niagara, 226 

Windermere, England, 23s 

IN MEMORIAM : 

Human Life, 239 

Prayer in Affliction, 242 

Elegiac Stanzas 247 

Consolation, 250 

On the Death of a Missionary, .... 252 

POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Epithalamium, 259 

The Friends I Left Behind, 261 

A New Year's Greeting, . . . . ■ 263 

To My Late Guests, 265 

Lines to Miss H — 269 

Faithful Forever, ..'.... 271 

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Dies Ir.b. — Three Ve7-sions, ..... 277 

All Saved 286 

Luther's Hymn. — The Original and 'J'nuislation, . 290 

Woman. — Newark Orplian Asylum, .... 294 

Streamlet and Pool. — Pi-otesiant Foster Home, . 297 

Anniversary Hymns, I.-X., " << << ^^^ 

The Appeal. — Home for Aged Women, . . . 312 
Dedication Hymns, etc., I.-XIIL, . . .314 

Missionary Hymns, I. -XIV., 329 

Ode to Cold Water, . . . , . . . 345 

The Lord's Prayer, 347 



ILLUSTRATIONS, 
J 

I. 1 raxsfu;l'rai ION. Frontispiece to Microcosm. 

Painted by Raphael. Engraved by Raphael Morghen. 
" Et transfiguratus est ante eos.'' — Matt, xvii : 2. 

Dear God ! this Body, which with wondrous art 

Thou hast contrived and finished part by part, 

Itself a Universe, a lesser All, 

The greater Cosmos crowded in the small, 

I kneel before it as a thing divine, 

For such as this did actually enshrine 

Thy gracious Godhead once, when Thou didst make 

Thyself incarnate for my sinful sake. — p. 24. 

^ 2. Jacob and Rachki,. Love at First Siglit, p^'ge 72. 

J'ainled by Andiva Appiani , /S/i. Engraved by G. Garavaglio. 

Jacob venit in terram orientalem . . . et ecce Rachel veniebat 
cum ovibus patris sui. — Gen. xxix : i, g. 

Young Love, First Love, Love, haply, at First Sight, 
Smites like the lightning, dazzles like the light. — p. 72. 

•vl 3. At koRA, -....- page 104. 

Painted by Giiido Rheni. Engraved by Raphael Morghen. 

Prevenient splendors run along the sky. 

The East each moment brightens more and more 

As nears the jeweled Chariot of the Sun 

Where rides in awful state the King of Day. — p. 104. 

4. Chkisil's Rkmunkrator, - - - pnge 277. 

/'(tinted by .}ry Seheffer. Engraved by Henritjuel D upon I. 

" Kt statuet oves quidem a dextris suis, haedos autem a sinistris." 
— Matt. XXV : 33. 

Let mc, when the skies are rifted. 
And the sheep from goats are sifted. 
Be to Thy right hand uplifted ! — p. 285. 



PREFACE 



''pHK ^^CK()COSM, which forms the leading Poem of the follow- 
ing collection, has already passed through one editif)n, and is 
now out of print. It was first published in iS66, in connection with an 
Address read at the same time by the author, as President, before 
the Medical Society of New Jersey at its Centennial Anniversary. 
His design was to produce, if possible, in a poetical form, a tolerably 
complete compendium of that noblest, most necessary, and yet, 
strange to say, that most neglected of all the sciences, the science of 
the Human Body, relieved of some of the dryness belonging to the 
usual modes of presentation. .\n " Essay on Man," in verse, whose 
scope, unlike that of Pope's should be physiological rather than 
ethical, had not, so far as he knew, been attempted. Pope assigns 
two reasons for hischoosing.yerse and even rhyme rather than prose. 
First, because " principles, maxims, or precepts so written, both 
strike the reader more strongly at first, and are more easily retained 
by him afterward." And, secondlv, because he found he could 
" e.xpress them more slioiily in this way than in ])r(>se itself ! " The 
author of the Microcosm may perhaps be permitted to say, that simi- 
lar considerations determined his own choice, feeling sure that the ad- 
vantages in favor of condensation, not to mention other things, were 
clearly on the side of verse, even with.his moderate facility in the use 
of the instrument. He is quite certain that in no other way could he, 
in the narrow compass of fourteen hundred lines, have compressed 
an equal amount of information. 

Great, undoubtedly, are the attractions of a virgin theme. It 
added to the ra[)ture of Milton — "soaring in the high reason of his 



X PREFACE. 

fancy, with his tjarland and singing robes about him" — the knowledge 

that he pursued 

" Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." 
So Lucretius, in the opening lines of the Fourth Book of his great 
Poem, entitled '' De Reriint A'atura,'" does not conceal his satisfaction 
ihat he is first in the field : 

" Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante 
Trita solo ; juvat integros adcedere funteis 
Alque haurire ; juvatque novos decerpere flores, 
Insignemque meo capiti petere inde coronam, 
Unde prius null! velarint ternpora Musse." * 

The writer, enjoying, in common with these great masters of song, 
the felicity of a subject unprofaned, for the most part, by previous 
handling, regrets that he does not possess their power to do it justice. 
If there is nothing so mean but it has a divine side — if materials for 
poetry be not wanting in the most common things, a floating cloud, a 
spear of grass, or a handful of dust even — how much more may this be 
said of so lofty a subject as Man, " the mirror of the power of God," 
reflecting the Maker's image in every part, in the minutest blood-disk 
and elementary cell, no less than in the complex whole of his most 
wonderful organism. In short, if it be the proper business of Poetry 
to deal with subjects of human interest, what can be more human 
than humanity itself? Or, if its high aim be to discover through- 
out Creation the dazzling tokens of the Beautiful, the rn Ka\h\\ 
which is only another name for the Divine, where else in all the 
Universe do the shining footprints of the First Good and the First 
Fair appear so radiant or so recent, as in His last and crowning 

* The Muses' pathless places I explore, 
Worn by the sole of no one's foot before ; 
'Tis sweet to untouched fountains to repair 
And drink ; 'lis sweet to pluck new flowers, and there 
To seek a famous chaplet fur my brow 
Whence have the Muses veiled no head till now. 



PREFACE. XI 

work, the Human Form. The faikire of the present attempt to show 
it, would prove nothing against the grand poetic possibilities of such 
a theme. Still it would be true, 

" How charming is divine pliilosophy ! 

Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 

But musical as is Apollo's lute, 

And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets 

Where no crude surfeit reigns." 

In regard to the Other Poems that go to make up the volume, the 
greater part, as the dates affixed show, were written many years ago. 
The impulse to write, in persons occupied with other matters and who 
do not make authorship a business, is apt to be fitful and born of 
an occasion. As in the case of the orator, it is the occasion, most 
likely, that supplies the theme and determines the treatment. Occa- 
sional and fugitive are convertible terms ; and yet, it sometimes hap- 
pens, that the interest attaching to the occasional is not fugitive but 
lasting. Witness that great body of fugitive poetry, so called, known 
as the Greek Anthology, composed of the culled flowers of many 
generations. Each dated poem is a window through which we catch 
a glimpse of the life lived in those remote times. These minor 
effusions of the Greek Muse have a high historic value. Like to " a 
light shining in a dark place," each helps to light up the epoch 
which gave it birth. " How far that little candle throws its beams ! " 
In our extreme desire to know something of those far-<jff times, shut 
out by "black usurping mists," we stand ready to welcome any 
means of illumination, and, like the Elder Brother in Comus, in the 
absence of anything better, were content would 

" some gentle taper. 
Though a rush-candle from the wicker hole 
Of some clay habitation, visit us 
With [its] long leveled rule of streaming light." 

The collector of these casual, scattered, and half forgotten children 



xii PREFACE. 

of his pen — in many cases, the incondite and unconsidered improvi- 
sations of various occasions — would be glad to think that what is 
here- said applies in any degree to them, so that, what they lack in 
literary value is made up, in a measure, by that historic interest which 
belongs more or less to all contemporary utterances. The world of 
to-day is not in all things the world of yesterday. In the solemn 
procession of events there is perpetual change. The incidents that 
affect ourselves and others become 

" Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past." 
As we grow old Memory becomes a kind of "God's Acre," full of 
Gravestones, Hie Jacets, and Epitaphs inscribed to a buried gener- 
ation — 

" I have had my playmates, I have had companions, 
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school days ; 
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces." 

That reflections of this solemn character should arise in the mind 
of the writer while engaged in the task of looking up and disinterring 
these hone siihsiciz'a — dusty relics and fragments of a former time, 
as utterly broken off and separated from the present, as though a 
thousand years intervened — seem natural and inevitable. Doubtless 
in offering them to the public a severer sifting would have been 
advisable, but, j'ielding to the partiality of friends, the meshes of the 
sieve became so large that almost everything was allowed to pass 
through. He makes no apology for their religious character. He is 
glad that he has not outgrown Christianity. Of the two he prefers a 
humble faith to a conceited agnosticism. 

Note. — The Illustrations to the volume — "Artotypc " copies preserving the ex- 
cellences of the engraved originals — were done by Harroun & Bierstadt, N. Y. 




PAINTED BY RAPHAEL. 



' Et transfiguratus est ante eos." Matt, xviii 2. 

Dear God! this Body . . did enshrine 

Thy gracious Godhead once, ^when Thou didst make 

Thyself incarnate, for my sinful sake. p. 24. 



THE MICROCOSM 

(second edition.) 
"KNOW THYSELF." 



■' It is most true that of all things in the universe man is the most composite, so 
that he was not without reason called by the ancients Microcosm, or the little 
world (Mundus Minor)." — Bacon. 

" Since God collected and resumed in Man 
The firmaments, the strata, and the lights. 
Fish, fowl, and beast, and insect, — all their trains 
Of various life caught back upon His arm. 
Reorganized, and constituted Man, 
The Microcosm, the adding up of works." 

— Elizabeth B. Browning. 

" What a piece of work is Man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! 
in form and moving, how express and admirable ! in action, how like an angel ! 
in apprehension, how like a God ! " — Sh.\kesi'eare. 

" I esteem myself as composing a solemn hymn to the Author of our bodily 
frame, and in this I think there is more true piety than in sacrificing to Him heca- 
tombs of o.\en, or burnt offerings of the most costly perfumes, for I first endeavor 
to know Him myself, and afterwards to show Him to others, to inform them how 
great is His wisdom. His virtue. His goodness." — Galen. 

" I will praise Thee ; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." — Daviu. 



ANALYSIS. 

T I "iHE Poem begins with speaking of Man as the Archetype or ideal 
-*- exemplar of all animals, whose coming was foretold in a long 
series of Geologic prophesies from the creation of the paleozoic fishes; 
and then passes to notice a remarkable anticipation of this accepted 
doctrine of modern science in the 139th Psalm — Owen, Agassiz and 
other great lights of Comparative and Philosophical Anatomy agreeing 
in this — that while man was the last made he was the first planned of 
all animals — it being easy to trace even in the fins of the fish, a 
marked resemblance in structure to the bones composing the human 
arms of which they are homologues — fins, in other words, being im- 
perfect arms, arms in their most rudimentary condition. 

In speaking of the supreme dignity of the human form, viewed as 
a whole, and of man existing in God as well as of God, occasion is 
taken to animadvert upon the atheistic tendency of certain material- 
istic teachings. (After which the component parts of the Human Body 
are taken up in detail, beginning with — I. the Skix, as its outermost 
covering and face (expressing the passions, &c.,), composed of three 
layers. Below the Skin lie — II. the Muscles, the Organ of Motion, 
directed by the Will, acting through Nervous Channels of commu- 
nication with — III. the Br.mn, as the Common Sensory, and seat of 
this and the other Faculties of the Mind, such as the Understand- 
ing, the Religious Sense, Memory, Imagination and Conscience. A 
secretory function is attributed to the great Ganglions of the Brain 
(the Gray Substance) of a hypothetical Nervous Fluid which tills the 
whole body. 

The Mind being dependent for its perceiving power on the Organs 
of the Senses, leads to a consideration of — IV. the Eve in its relation 



l6 A N A L Y SIS. 

to Light, also to Tears and Sleep. After glancing at the analagous 
relations subsisting between the Soul and Truth, mention is made of 
the Founders of Asylums for the Blind ; also of Asylums for the 
Deaf and Dumb. Next comes — V. the Ear in its relations to Sound 
and Music ; and then by a natural transition — VI. the Human Voice, 
as being the most perfect of musical instruments. The Mouth and 
Nose, being concerned in Articulation, brings up — -VII. Smeli,, and 
— VIII. Taste. The final cause of Taste being the repair of the 
Waste the body is constantly undergoing, there follows a description 
of — IX. Indigestion, Digestion and Assimilation. The Chyle 
received into the Blood is conveyed to the right side of the Heart, 
which, besides being the grand Organ of — X. the Circulation and 
indirectly of Nutrition, is the reputed seat of — XI. the Affections, 
and stands in general speech as a synonym of Lo^'E under its mani- 
fold manifestations. 

Having noticed the coloring or modifying power of the Viscera in 
giving Love its distinctive character, as exemplified in Maternal Love 
and the Love of the Sexes, occasion is taken to speak of — XII. Woman, 
as distinguished from Man. Of Charity, which is Love in action, or Love 
viewed in its practical aspect, an apt illustration is found in the devo- 
tion and self-denying labors of — XIII. the Conscientious Physician. 
Reference is made to — XIV. Christ as the Great Physician of Souls ; 
and to Death in that aspect of brightness which it bears to the 
believer. The Poem concludes with — XV. a triumphant anticipation 
of the Resurrection, when the dead in Christ shall rise with new 
ISODIES made like unto His glorious Body. 



THE MICROCOSM 



ivOoOL (jetYVTOV. 



Geologic Prophecy of Man s Coming. 

OWHAT a solemn and divine delight 
To pierce the darkness of primeval night — 
Through countless generations upward climb 
To the first epochs of beginning time ; 
Back, through the solitude of ages gone, 
To the dim twilight of Creation's dawn ; 
To the dread genesis of heaven and earth, 
When pregnant Deity gave Nature birth ; 
Borne on swift pinions, till our feet we place 
Upon the undermost granitic base 

Of the round world ; and, awe-struck, standing there, 
Where all is lifeless, desolate and bare, 
2 



5 THE MICROCOSM. 

Behold the forming of earth's upper crust, 
Built up of atoms of once living dust ; 
Layer on layer rising, rock on rock. 
Through lapse of years that numeration mock; 
Where lie, in stony sepulchres forgot. 
Gigantic organisms that now are not ; 
And all the various forms of life prevail. 
From low to high, in an ascending scale, — 
Mollusk and fish, then reptile, and then bird, 
So on to mammal, each o'er each interred — 
All pointing forward, in the eternal plan, 
To the ideal, archetypal MAN ! 

Scriptural Anticipation of the Doctrine. 

How oft, what's plain and patent in the Word 
Is by slow Science painfully inferred ! 
The truth she took long centuries to unfold, 
Had she but known it, was already told. 
See, with what ease the Psalmist now unlocks 
The secret of the paleozoic rocks ; 
Inspiring insight given him, to see 
The drift and meaning of the mystery; 
His, the discoveries of modern boast. 
By revelation of the Holy Ghost ; 



THE MICROCOSM. 19 

In correspondence, literally exact 
With geologic inference and fact, 
O'erwhelmed with fear and wonder, hear him speak :* 

"O Omnipresent One ! in vain I seek 
To bound Thy being, get beyond Thee, go 
Where Thou, the Infinite, art not, — Oh, no ! 
If I ascend to heaven, I find Thee ; or in hell 
I make my bed, I find Thee there as well ; 
There is no hiding place from Thee ; yea, in the dark 
Thou seest me, nor need'st the sun — that spark 
Which the insufferable splendor of Thine eye 
Did kindle — to reveal me or descry ; 
Thou hast possessed my reins ; didst give me room, 
Growth and development in my mother's womb ; 
My substance was not hid from Thee, when I 
Was made in secret, and was curiously 
In the earth's lowest parts and strata wrought ; 
My perfect whole, was present to Thy thought 
While yet imperfect, and, in Nature's book 
My members were prefigured ; each thing took 
My embryonic likeness ; fish's fin. 
By virtue of relationship and kin, 

* Psalm cxxxix. 



3 THE MICROCOSM. 

Predicted me ; ages before I came, 

The Ichthyosaurus prophesied tlie same ; 

Entrails of beast, and wing of bird, supplied 

Aruspicy and augury, nor lied. 

Thy works, how marvellous ! Thy hands began, 

And wrought continually to make me man. 

In all the grand ascent of Nature's stair, 

O unforgetting God ! I've been Thy care : 

How precious are Thy thoughts to me — their count 

Is as the sand, an infinite amount !" 

General View — Alan Supreme. 

O thou, made up of every creature's best, 
The summing up and monarch of the rest ! 
Thy high-raised cranium, — vaulted to contain 
The big and billowy and powerful brain. 
While that a scanty thimbleful, no more. 
Belongs to such as swim or creep or soar; 
Thy form columnar, sky-ward looking face,* 
Majestic mien, intelligence and grace. 
Thy foot's firm tread, and gesture of thy hand 

* " Pronaque cum spectant animalia caetera terram, 
Os homini sublime dedit : coelumque videre 
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus." — Oi'ui. 



THE MICROCOSM. 2 

Proclaim thee ruler, destined to command. 

A little lower than the angels made, 

Dominion, glory, worship on thee laid, 

I praise not thee, but honor and applaud 

The handiwork and masterpiece of God. 

Fearful and w^onderful, and all divine, 

Where two worlds mingle, and two lives combine — 

A dual body, and a dual soul. 

Touching eternity at either pole — 

The tides of being, circling swift or slow, 

'Tween mystic banks that ever overflow, 

Exist not severed from the Fountain-head, 

But whence they rise, eternally are fed : 

Our springs are all in God; from Him we drink. 

Live, move, and have our being, feel and think. 

Christian Science. 

I value Science — none can prize it more — 
It gives ten thousand motives to adore. 
Be it religious, as it ought to be, 
The heart it humbles, and it bows the knee; 
What time it lays the breast of Nature bare, 
Discerns God's fingers working everywhere ; 
In the vast sweep of all embracing laws, 



2 THE MICROCOSM . 

Finds Him the real and the only Cause ; 
And, in the light of clearest evidence, 
Perceives Him acting in the present tense — 
Not as some claim, once acting but now not, 
The glorious product of His hands forgot. 
Having wound up the grand automaton, 
Leaving it, henceforth, to itself to run. 

Infidel Science. 

If I mistake not, 'tis in this consists 
The common folly of the specialists. 
Bigots of sense, they, with unwearied pains 
Searching for soul, find something they call brains ; 
Happy the mystery of life to tell. 
By help of glasses, they announce a cell ; 
And thereupon they would the world persuade 
They know exactly how that man is made ; 
'Tween nought and nought, his origin and end, 
A cell is all, and all on this depend ; 
They pare his being, make it less and less. 
Until they reach the goal of nothingness. 
Their boasted methods failing to find out 
The soul's high essence, they affect to doubt ; 
To their own notions obstinately wed, 



THE MICROCOSM. 23 

They vainly seek the living 'mong the dead ; 
By learning mad, these noodles of the schools 
Are but a kind of higher class of fools. 

Who follows matter through its countless shapes, 
While still it vanishes and still escapes ; 
O'er eagerly pursues the flying feet 
Of natural causes farther than is meet. 
Losing all trace, and drawing thence too near, 
Into the bottomless obscure falls sheer ; 
With atheistic cant, then God ignores, 
And turns the Maker fairly out of doors ; 
Deems certainties of consciousness weigh less 
Than the presumptions of a learned guess. 

Common Sense. 

Presumptuous though it be, I, with a calm 
Audacity of faith, believe I am ; 
Nor venture with a Maker to dispense, 
But trust the sanities of Common Sense ; 
Hold life, despite of failure to extract, 
A thing of firm reality and fact ; 
Accept the truth, engraven on my heart, 
I have a spiritual and immortal part. 
If this great universe is a deceit. 



24 THE MICROCOSM. 

I am not able to detect the cheat ; 
Nor dare I tell the Author of the Skies 
That He has built on rottenness and lies. 

Invocation. 

Dear God ! this Body, which, with wondrous art 
Thou hast contrived, and finished part by part, 
Itself a universe, a lesser all. 
The greater cosmos crowded in the small — 
I kneel before it, as a thing divine ; 
For such as this, did actually enshrine 
Thy gracious Godhead once, when Thou didst make 
Thyself incarnate, for my sinful sake. 
Thou who hast done so very much for me, 

let me do some humble thing for Thee ! 

1 would to every Organ give a tongue. 
That Thy high praises may be fitly sung ; 
Appropriate ministries assign to each, 
The least make vocal, eloquent to teach. 

FlesJi Garment — Skin, its Moral Cliaracter. 

How beautiful, and delicate, and fresh. 
Appear the Soul's Habiliments of Flesh ! 
How closely fitting, easy yet, and broad, 



THE MICROCOSM. 25 

Each Tissue woven in the h)oiTi of God ! 
Compared with that magnificence of dress, 
Wherewith is clotlied the Spirit's nakedness, 
O how contemptible and mean a thing. 
The purple and fine linen of a king ! 
The spotless vesture of the silky Skin, 
Outside of all, and covering all within, 
With what a marvellous and matchless grace, 
Is it disposed and moulded to each place ; 
Bounding and beautifying brow and breast, 
A crowning loveliness to all the rest ! 
Endowed with wondrous properties of soul 
That interpenetrate and fill the whole — 
A raiment, moral, maidenly and white. 
Shamed at each breach of decency and right. 
Where dwells a charm above the charms of sense. 
Suggestive of the soul's lost innocence. 

Pat/ifli^noi/iy. 

^Who has not seen that Feeling, born of flame,* 
Crimson the cheek at mention of a name ? 
The rapturous toucli of some divine surprise 

* Aristotle calls Love, " ri 6epfiul> 7Tfjd}fia"—a. certain fiery thing. 



26 THE MICROCOSM. 

Flash deep suffusion of celestial dyes ; 

When hands clasped hands, and lips to lips were pressed, 

And the heart's secret was at once confessed ? 

Lo, the young mother, when her infant first 
Gropes for the fountain whence to quench its thirst : 
With outstretched tiny hands, to eager lips 
Conveys the nipple, and the nectar sips ; — 
As on her yearning breast, she feels the warm 
Delicious clasp of its embracing arm. 
How thrills the bosom, and how streams the wine ! 
How her frame trembles with a Joy divine ! 

Not Joy, not Love alone here take their rise, 
The chosen seat of mighty sympathies ; 
Electric with all life. Religious Awe 
Here holds its empire and asserts its law. 
At dead of night when deep sleep falls on men, 
Terror and trembling came upon me ; then 
A spirit passed before my face ; the hair 
Stood up upon my shuddering flesh — and there 
Was silence — all my bones did shake — 
A voice the preternatural stillness brake : 
"Shall mortal man, whose origin is dust. 
Arraign his Maker, claim to be more just ?" 

Contending Passions jostle and displace 



THE MICROCOSM. 27 

And tilt and tourney mostly in the Face ; 

Phantasmagoric shapes appear and pass, 

Distinctly pictured in that magic glass ; 

Their several natures, instantly imbued 

With the complexion of the changeful mood — 

Ashes of Grief, and pallor of Affright, 

Blackness of Rage, and Hatred's wicked white. 

The immortal radiance of Faith and Hope, 

Like that which streamed on Stephen's from the cope ; 

The hidden depths of being, stirred below, 

Thoughts, passions, feelings, upward mount for show ; 

Unmatched by Art, upon this wondrous scroll 

Portrayed are all the secrets of the Soul ; 

Upon this palimpsest, writ o'er and o'er, 

Each passing hour is busy penning more ; 

Events, that make the history within. 

There published on the surface of the Skin. 

Interior Vic7v — Skin Dissected. 

What lies below this beautiful outside? 
What proofs of power and wisdom does it hide ? 
To eyes instructed and divinely keen. 
The Shekinah, the Cherubim between, 
Was not more visible than the Godhead here, 



28 THE MICROCOSM. 

Nor spake more audibly to human ear. 
For from the centre to this far extreme, 
And corporal shore of being, Love supreme 
Its miracles magnificent has wrought, 
Embodying the Maker's perfect thought. 

Would you explore the Mysteries of Life ? 
Dissect in fear, use reverently the knife — 
All was made sacred to some holy use, 
Whate'er the profanations of abuse — 
Cut not with blundering and careless hand. 
If you the fleshly maze would understand ; 
For that the task is difficult, it needs 
The skill and knowledge which experience breeds. 

Blending of Contraries — Struetiiral Details. 

Now that the Dermal Covering is cut through, 
And its interior structure brought to view. 
Pause, if you will, and let your aided sight 
Peruse the wonders of Creative Might. 
Admire the skill that can in one combine 
A Sensibility and a Touch so fine — 
Making the Skin throughout the purpose serve 
Of one ubiquitous great surface nerve, 
That finest needle, would it entrance gain, 



THE MICROCOSM. 29 

Must pierce the sense and stab the soul with pain ; 

Where camping armies of papillae wait, 

Manning each fortress, guarding every gate. 

Armed at all points, and vigilant as fear, 

To sound th' alarm when danger hovers near — 

And yet, despite this nicety of sense, 

Formed for coarse uses, and for rough defense ; — 

An imbricated Armor, scale on scale * 

Twelve thousand millions form a coat of mail. 

Flexile and fine, or horny else and hard. 

The trembling nakedness of sense to guard ; 

A colored Rate delicately spun, 

Quenching the fiery arrows of the sun, 

Spreads soft above, and undulating dips 



* The Skin as here described includes: i. The C«i'/<:/<? with its innumerable 
microscopic tiles specially designed for defence. 2. The Rete Mucosiiiii, the seat of 
color. 3. The O^r/aw or True Skin, consisting of two non-separable layers — the 
upper, papillary and sensitive ; the lower, firm and fibrous. 4. Perspiratory tubes, 
convoluted beneath the true skin, their spiral ducts opening obliquely under the 
scales of the Cuticle, their office being to purify and cool the body. 5. Sebaceous 
Follicles, or Oil Glands, seated in the substance of the skin, serving to soften and 
lubricate the surface, furnishing likewise, perhaps, 6, that Distinctive Odor pecu- 
liar to each individual whereby he sows himself on all the winds, and perfumes 
with every footstep the ground over which he passes. 7. The Hair, implanted by 
a bulbous root in the fibrous layer of the Corium, which being contractile shrinks 
under the influence of great fear or horror, and as the poet says : 
" Makes each particular hair to stand on end 
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine " — 
quills in the porcupine, feathers in the bird, wool and hair in the quadruped, all 
belonging to the same category. Hair in man, not being needed for warmth or 
covering as in the lower lives, is gathered to the head and appropriately crowns it. 



3© THE MICROCOSM. 

Between the sentient papillary tips, 

Part of the duplex Corium beneath 

Forming a continent elastic sheath, 

Felted and firm and suitable to bind. 

Muscle and viscus to the place assigned ; 

Where, nine full leagues of Tubing buried lie — 

All convoluted opening to the sky. 

Transmitting formed impurities within. 

Through doors and windows of the porous skin, 

Th' exuding moisture tempering inward flame, 

Cooling the fever of the heated frame — 

Fountletsand Rivulets of Oil below. 

Preserving softness, ever spring and flow ; 

Musk emanations — to the dog defined, 

Snufiing his master on the scented wind — 

Hair, not for warmth or dress, here sparsely spread, 

Reserved to ornament the regal head. 

Around the brow of Eva thickly curled 

And crowning Adam monarch of the world. 

Voluntary Muscles— Their Office and Work. 

Lifting this threefold Veil, we find— beneath 
A dense, enclosing, universal sheath — '•• 

* The enveloping aponeurosis or fascia binding- down the muscles. 



THE MICROCOSM. 31 

The subject Muscles — * girded to fulfil 
The lightning mandates of the sovereign Will — 
Th' abounding means of motion, wherein lurk 
Man's infinite capacity for work ; 
By which, as taste or restless nature bids. 
He rears the Parthenon or Pyramids ; 
In high achievements of the plastic art, 
Fulfils th' ambitious purpose of his heart ; 
Creates a grace outrivaling his own, 
Charming all eyes — the poetry of stone ; 
Symbols his faith, as in Cathedrals — vast 
Religious petrifactions of the Past : 
Covers the land with cities ; makes all seas 
White with the sails of countless argosies ; 
Pushes the ocean back with all her waves. 
And from her haughty sway a kingdom saves ; 
Tunnels high mountains, Erebus unbars. 
And through it rolls the thunder of his cars ; 
With stalwart arm, defends down-trodden right, 



* Some authors reckon the number of Muscles in the Human Body as high as 
527. They have been divided into I'oluntary (forminfj the red flesh, or the main 
bulk of the body ); hiToluntar)\i,\xc\i as the heart, fleshy fibres of the stomach, 
etc.; and Mixed^ such as the muscles of respiration, etc. Each Muscle is made up 
of an indefinite number of fibres, which may be considered as so many muscles in 
miniature, along which stream the currents of the Will. Yet with all this complex 
apparatus everything is in harmony. 



32 THE MICROCOSM. 

And, like a whirlwind, sweeps the field of fight-; 
And when, at last, the war is made to cease. 
On firm foundations stablishes a peace ; 
Then barren wastes with nodding harvests sows, 
And makes the desert blossom as the rose. 

Muscular Dynamics — Directing Potver Where ? 

> 

Bundles of fleshy fibres without end, 

Along the bony Skeleton extend 

In thousand-fold directions from fixed points 

To act their several parts upon the Joints ; 

Adjustments nice of means to ends we trace, 

With each dynamic filament in place ; 

But Where's the Hand that grasps the million reins 

Directs and guides them, quickens or restrains ? 

See the musician, at his fingers' call, 
All sweet sounds scatter, fast as rain-drops fall ; 
With flying touch, he weaves the web of song, 
Rhythmic as rapid, intricate as long. 
Whence this precision, delicacy and ease? 
And where's the Master that defines the keys? 

The many-jointed Spine, with link and lock 
To make it flexile while secure from shock. 
Is pierced throughout, in order to contain 



T H E M I C A' OCO S M . Z2> 

The downward prolongation of the brain ; 
From which, by double roots, the Nerves* arise — 
One Feeling gives, one Motive Power supplies ; 
In opposite directions, side by side. 
With mighty swiftness there two currents glide — ■ 
Winged, head and heel, the Mercuries of Sense f 
Mount to the regions of Intelligence ; 
Instant as light, the nuncios of the throne 
Command the Muscles that command the Bone. 
Each morning after slumber, brave and fresh, 
The Moving x^rmy of the Crimson Flesh, 
From fields of former conquests, marching comes 
To the grand beating of imnumbered drums — \ 
Each martial Fibre pushing to the van 
To make " I will " the equal of " I can"; 

* For the benefit of the general reader, presumably not familiar with anatomi- 
cal details, we may state that there arc 43 pairs of nerves in all, /. e. 12 Cranial or 
Encephalic and 31 Spinal. The first have only one root in the brain, whilst the 
latter arise by two roots from the anterior and posterior halves of the spinal mar- 
row, but unite immediately afterwards to form one nerve. Division of the ante- 
rior root causes loss of motion — of the posterior the loss of sensation. The first 
transmit volitions y>v/« the brain, the latter sensitive impressions to the brain. 

t Hclmholtz has instituted c.Kpcriments to determine the rapidity of transmis- 
sion of the nervous actions. For sensation the rate of movement assigned is one 
hundred and eighty to three hundred feet per second. Muscular contraction, or 
shortening of the muscular fibre takes place, at times, with extreme velocity; a 
single thrill, in the letter R., can be pronounced in the i-3o,oooth part of a minute. 
There are insects whose wings strike the air thousands of times in a minute. The 
force of contraction {,Myodynaiiiis) is most remarkable in some of these. In birds, 
the absolute power in proportion to the weight of the body is as 10,000 to i. 

X The heart and arteries. 



34 THE MICROCOSM. 

Testing the possibilities of power 
In deeds of daring suited to the hour ; 
Doing its utmost to build up the health 
And glory of the inner Commonwealth. 
Levers and fulcra everywhere we find, 
But where's the great Archimedean Mind, 
That on some pou STO,* outside and above, 
Plants its firm foot this living world to move ? 

Cranium — Soul 's Firmament — Brain. 

V 

Find it we shall, if anywhere we can, 

Doubtless, in that high Capitol of man, 

Whose Spheric Walls, concentric to the cope, 

Were built to match the nature of his Hope. 

What seems the low vault of a narrow tomb, 

Is the Soul's sky, where it has ample room ; 

As apt through this, its crystalline, to pass, 

As though it were diaphanous as glass. 

When Sense is dark, it is not dark, but light. 

Itself a sun, that banishes the night, 

Shedding a morning, beauteous to see. 

On the horizon of Eternity. 

* Archimedes used to say, "Give a place where I may stand (Jof ttov ctu), 
and I can move the world." 



THE MICROCOSM. 35 

Strange, a frail link and manacle of Brain 

So long below suffices to detain 

A principle, so radiant and high. 

So restless, strong, and fitted for the sky. 

Mind's Organ — City of the Dead. 

Here mounted, standing on the topmost towers. 
Up to the roof of this high dome of ours, 
With the Mind's Organ in our hands, what new 
Secrets of structure strike th' astonished view? 
A weird and wonderful, and fragile mass 
Of white and gray * — deserted now, alas ! 
All knowledge quite razed out ; no trace 
Of things which were ; now mourns each happy place, 



* The Nervous System everywhere consists of two kinds of tissue — White and 
Gray. The White forms the nerves^ the exterior of the spinal cord, and the central 
parts of the brain and cerebellum (where it is soft, like curdled cream, but is 
firmer in the nerves), composed everywhere of parallel fibres or threads of extreme 
fineness, which form the Channels of nervous power and influence to and from 
the Ganglionic Centres — Sources, both great and small, of this influence. These 
constitute the Gray substance found in the central ^I'^rXs of the spinal cord, at the 
base of the brain in isolated masses, and the exterior of the cerebrum and cerebel- 
lum, where to economize space it lies in folds, dipping down into the interior, and 
forming the convolutions. It is found also in the ganglia of the Great Sympa- 
thetic. Condensely stated, the gray ganglia originate nervous power, the white 
nervous filaments only transmit it. The Hemispherical Ganglia (the plaited or 
convoluted cortex of the cerebrum forming about nine-tenths of the whole mass 
of the brain), although entirely destitute of both sensibility and excitability, are 
believed to be on good grounds the special seat, so far as these can be said to have 
any, of the intellectual faculties — memory, reason, judgment and the like. Im- 
pressions, conveyed to the Spinal Cord, /. e. its ganglionic centre, are there organ- 



36 THE MICROCOSM. 

Where frolicked once the Children of the Mind, 

Of all the number, not one left behind ; 

No vestige of the battle and the strife ; 

None, of the conquests that ennobled life. 

Hid is the maze where Doubt was wont to grope ; 

Hid the starved fibre of a perished Hope ; 

Hid the tough sinews of a wrestling Faith, 

The Christian Athlete matched with Sin and Death ; 

Hid all the teeth-prints of the wolves of Grief, 

A savage pack, of which Remorse is chief. 

How strange, of all the wounds our comforts mar, 

That of the fellest we should find no scar ! 

None can point out where Understanding dwelt ; 
None, the high places where Religion knelt — 
The spot where Reverence, with feet unshod. 
Came to consult the Oracle of God. 

The crypts and catacombs, where Memory cast 
The bones of all the dead of all the Past ; 



rVrtZ/jC, not intellectually perceived, and the movements which follow are such as 
are dictated by supreme organic wisdom, forming indeed an admirable mimicry 
of conscious sensation and voluntary action, but mimicry only, for both are really 
absent. This belongs to what is called "reflex action," and explains automatic 
function and phenomena, of which life is full. It is not, it is believed, until im- 
pressions have reached the ganglion of the Tuber Annulare that they arc con- 
verted into conscio!(s sensations and excite voliDitary movements. And only when 
they have mounted to the Hemispheres, the ganglia of thought and feeling, that 
they become the property of the intellect and are made the grounds of rational 
conduct. 



THE MICROCOSM. 37 

Shelves, where were stowed all libraries of man, 

All gray traditions, since the world began ; 

All literatures, religions, kinds and parts 

Of knowledge, laws, philosophies and arts ; 

All actions, all articulated breath — 

The Book of Life, and, ah ! the Book of Death,— 

Wherein, whatever fatal leaf it turned, 

Its former self the guilty soul discerned, 

Mirrored entire — seen outside and within 

In every form and attitude of sin ; 

Th' inevitable reflection, imaged there. 

True to the life, like pictures of Daguerre ; 

The very scene, in which each deed was done, 

Painted in all the colors of the sun ; 

So faithful, fresh, time, circumstance and act, 

The past reality seemed present fact — 

There field, and weapon, and the riven brain 

Of Abel smitten by the hand of Cain, 

And blood, with red moist lips, in Pity's ears 

Crying for vengeance through eternal years, 

Th' unwashed crimson of the guilty sod 

As in the eye and memory of God. 

Imagination's skyey seat, where came 
For soaring flight the demigods of fame. 



3^ THE MICROCOSM. 

Home of the Muses, fair and forked Mount 
Of high Parnassus, and Castalian Fount, 
Whence issued streams that watered all the earth, 
Then most, when blind Moeonides had birth ; 
And Zion's holier Hill, and Siloe's Brook, 
Warbling forever, in blind Milton's book ; 
The topmost peak where Shakespeare took his stand, 
And waved his wand of power o'er sea and land. 
Strange, that so sweet and heavenly a hill. 
Should breed fierce dragons, ravenous beasts of ill — 
" Gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire," 
Monsters of hideous shapes, with tongues of fire- 
Have rifted rocks whose entrance leads to hell, 
And the damned wizard of the mighty spell, 
Making its precincts all enchanted ground. 
Turning to horror every sight and sound, 
With grisly terrors, straight from Acheron, 
Peopling each nook, and darkening all the sun. 

None can the judgment seat of Conscience show, 
That highest Court and Parliament below. 
Where, sole and sovereign, seated on her throne, 
She recognized th' Infallible alone. 
To her, the keys of heaven and earth were given, 
And what she bound on earth was bound in heaven. 



THE MICROCOSM. 39 

By the clear light, which her decisions shed, 
Instructed feet in pleasant ways were led, 
Martyrs were pointed to the neighboring sky, 
And Patriots taught how sweet it is to die. 

Where these had their high dwelling, we, in vain, 
Seek in this packed and folded pulp of brain. 
Judged, by the ignorant regards of sense, 
How mean ! by heights of function, how immense ! 
To reason and the vision of shut eyes 
Its infinite expandings fill the skies. 
What regions of sublimity once there ! 
What mountains soaring in the upper air ! 
Not thunder scarred Acroceraunian* peak, 
Alpine or Himalayan loftier than the Greek, 
So high so hidden — from whose secret tops. 
Keener than needles, trickled the first drops 
Of rising rivers, flowing silently 
Into the cerebral deep drainless sea. 
From which, as from a mighty fountain-head, 
Life's crystal waters everywhere were spread. 



* A range of very high mountains in Greece (from oKpo', extreme, .and 
Kepavvoc, thunderbolt), so called because tlieir peaks arc often struck by light- 
ning. 



40 THE MICROCOSM. 

Coursing in liquid lapse through Channels White,* 
Swift as the lightning, stainless as the light, 
Conveying to each atom of the whole 
Volitions, animations, power and soul. 

Once beautiful for situation, gem 
And joy of the whole earth, Jerusalem, 
How sits she solitary ! she that was great 
Among the nations, now left desolate ! 
Th' adversary hath spread out his hand 
On all her pleasant things and spoiled the land ; 
Her gates are sunk into the ground ; the rent 
And ruined rampart and the wall lament ; 
Her palaces are swallowed up ; the Lord 
His altar hath cast off ; He hath abhorred 
His sanctuary even ; hath o'erthrown 
And pitied not, nor cared to spare His own. 

* The Nerves are composed of bundles of minute fibres or filaments, averagings 
1-2,000 of an inch in diameter. Each filament consists of a colorless, transparent, 
tubular membrane, containing- a thick, softish, semi-fluid nervous matter which is 
white and glistening by reflected light. Running through the central part is a 
longitudinal grayish band, called " the a.xis of the cylinder.'" Branches of a nerve 
are merely separations and new directions of some of the filaments of the bundle, 
these being always continuous from their origin to their point of distribution, 
which prevents any confusion arising from a running together of impressions. 
The nervous tree, like that of the blood vessels, is so vast, that in its totality, 
exhibited separately, it would give almost an outline of the human form. The 
circulation of a nervous fluid, though not demonstrable, has been hypothetically 
deduced from the tubular structure of the nerves and other considerations. 
Assuming the fact, the whole body may be said to swim in this vital sea, having 
its analogy in that higher or divine animation, described as being " filled with the 
Spirit." 



THE MICROCOSM. 
The Exi\ and its Corrclatroe. 

The ways of Zion mourn ; funereal gloom 
Fills every habitation like a tomb ; 
Closed is each port, and window of the mind ; 
And there is none to look — the Eye is blind. 
How different once, when in that little Sphere, 
The glorious universe was pictured clear! 
O what an Organ that ! germane to Light, 
Whose own relations too are such to sight, 
T'were hard to say, the two so nicely fit, 
Made was the eye for light, or light for it. 
Ne'er were two lovers, separate by space. 
More eager, fond, impatient to embrace, 
Than that sweet splendor — streaming from afar, 
Traveling for ages from some distant star, 
Straight as an arrow speeding from the bow — 
And that dear Eyeball waiting here below. 

Light has no Manifesting:;; Poiver ivithout the Eye. 

Prime work of God ! upon the bended knee 
The whole creation homage pays to thee ; 
From night and chaos countless suns emerge 
That all their beamings may in thee converge, 



41 



42 THE MICROCOSM. 

Since wholly vain and useless were, they know, 

Without the Eye to see, their light to show ; 

They roll in darkness, quenched their every ray, 

Till thy lids opening change the night to day. 

Placed, for commanding and enjoying these, 

In the dread centre of immensities. 

The depths thou searchest and the heights supreme, 

Ranging at will from this to that extreme. 

Where space is dark to thy unaided sight, 

Thither thou turn'st thy telescope of might, 

And in the heart of the abysmal gloom 

Behold'st celestial gardens all abloom — 

Brave starry blossomings and clusters fine 

Loading the branches of the heavenly vine ; 

See'st suns, like dust, lie scattered 'long the road 

That leads to that far Paradise of God. 

From this to yonder, who the leagues can tell ? 

One might compute the ocean's drops as well. 

Turn now ! the nether infinite explore ! 

Extend thy vision as thou did'st before !'* 

Pierce downwards, pierce to the concealed minute, 

The ultimates of things, the germ, the root, 

* For example, with a Microscope that magnifies a million times. 



THE MICROCOSM. 43 

The atom world, — so near and yet so far 

Not more remote is the remotest star — • 

To forms of Hfe to which, O can it be? 

A drop of water is a shoreless sea ! 

So vast thy sweep, it surely were not strange 

If eye angelic had no wider range. 

Even so ! On earth or in the realms of air 

Nothing is fair but as thou mak'st it fair — 

In face or flower or iris braided rain, 

Beauty exists not or exists in vain ; 

Without thy power to paint them or perceive 

There were no gorgeous shows of morn and eve. 

Light lost ill the Eye reappears in the Consciousness. 

How wonderful, that organs made of clay 

Should drink so long th' abundance of the day ! 

Receive the constant unreturning tides 

Of sun and moon and all the stars besides ! 

Not lost is all this mighty wealth of beams — 

Rivers of light, innumerable streams. 

Flow darkling for a space, then spring again 

To join the Arethusas '" of the brain, 

* The river Alpheus in Elis is fabled to flow under the earth to Sicily and to 
unite with the fountain Arethusa ; hence Arethusa, a nymph, whose lover wa.s 
Alpheus. 



44 THE MICROCOSM. 

In bliss of married consciousness to be 
Fountains of brightness through eternity. 

Tears — Sleep, its Resuscitating; Power — Organic Life. 

Since man was born to trouble here below, 
Tears were provided for predestined woe ; 
And tears have fallen in perpetual shower 
From man's apostasy until this hour, 
But there's the promise of a future day 
When God's dear hand shall v/ipe all tears away. 

On eyes that watch as well as eyes that weep 
Descends the solemn mystery of Sleep. 
Toiling and climbing to the very close. 
The weary Body, longing for repose. 
On the gained level of the day's ascent, 
Halts for the night and pitches there its tent ; 
Then, sinking down, is 'gulphed in an abyss 
As deep and dark as the abodes of Dis.* 
Rather, returns into the peaceful gloom 
And blank unconsciousness of Nature's womb. 
Where plastic forces work, to be next morn 
To a new life and mightier vigor born — 

* Domos Ditis. 



THE MICROCOSM. 45 

Prepared to run again Life's upward way 

Scaling the misty summits of To-Day ; 

Lo ! height o'er height, through all the years, they rise, 

Supplying steps by which to mount the skies. 

Ladder, like Jacob's, heavenly, complete, 

Whose radiant rounds were for angelic feet. 

From night's dark caves spring evermore, in truth. 

Fountains of freshness and perpetual youth ; 

This seeming death, with consciousness at strife, 

Is health and happiness and length of life. 

There is within, that which preserves and keeps — 

Organic Providence that never sleeps ; — 

When the slack hand of Reason drops the rein. 

This drives the chariots of the heart and brain. 

Were life's full goblet trusted to the Will, 

Its nerveless hand would soon its contents spill ; 

The Maker so was careful to .provide 

Another principle and power beside, 

Archeus,* Instinct — any name may serve — 



* The Arcliaeus (from Gr. "P,tc»^«, to rule ; apX'>U beginning), according to Van 
Helmont, is an immaterial principle, existing from the beginning and presiding 
over the development of the body and over all organic phenomena. Besides this 
chief one, which he located in the upper orifice of the stomach, he admitted several 
subordinates, one for each organ, each of them being liable to anger, caprice, ter- 
ror, and every human feeling. 



46 THE MICROCOSM. 

Organic Life, Great Sympathetic Nerve,* 

With Cerebellum,! competent to save. 

And rescue from the clutches of the grave, — 

When Sleep would else have caused immediate death, 

Stopped the heart's action, and cut short the breath. 

Drying each source, that fed and kept alive 

Th' industrious bees in the organic hive. J 



* The Great Sympathetic lies in front and along the sides of the spine, and sup- 
plies the organs over which the will and consciousness have no immediate control, 
such as the intestines, liver, heart, etc. Its numerous ganglia (centres and origi- 
nators of nervous influence) are the knots of a nervous reticulation which connects 
not only the organs of Organic Life one with the other, but these also with the 
brain and spinal cord. It is due to this- -separately or conjointly with the spinal 
cord in its refle.x or e.\cito-motor capacity, derived from its own ganglionic a.xis or 
pith, giving it also independent and automatic powers, powers not sensibly de- 
pendent upon the consciousness or will for their exercise — that all the vital func- 
tions do not come to a stand-still in our first slumber. 

t The opinion, which attributes to Cerebellum the power of associating or co- 
ordinating the different voluntary movements, is the one now most generally re- 
ceived. Destroyed, the gubernatorial faculty is lost and the animal staggers and 
falls like a drunken man. In addition to this, it has been supposed that whatever 
the cerebrum does rationally and by fits, the cerebellum does unconsciously and 
permanently — so that in sleep, the motions of thought and will not being organi- 
cally but only consciously suspended, need to be maintained and kept up to their 
proper level, and that this is the office of the cerebellum, which like the chain and 
springs of a watch, not only regulate its movements, but prevent it from running 
suddenly down. 

t While an exaggerated importance may have been given to the doctrine of Cell 
Formation, the truth of it seems to be well established. The statement of Virchow 
that " Every animal presents itself as a sum of vital unities, every one of which 
manifests all the characteristics of life," although hypothetical, at least in part, is 
a convenient formula for explaining many vital phenomena observed both in 
health and disease. Receiving it, it certainly justifies the figure here used— the 
bee working with a blind instinct, being compared to that organic intelligence, 
which resident in each cell presides over the functions of nutrition, secretion and 
elimination. 



THE MICROCOSM. 47 

Spiritual A /la logics. 

As light to Eye, so to the Soul, in sooth. 
The light of God, the higher light of Truth. 
How, when man fell, his dark and liungry eyes 
Looked for the sunrise in the eastern skies ! 
Filled with all doubt, and wandering forlorn, 
Watching for signs of the delaying morn ! 
Ah ! should it never break, the stumbling feet 
Go stumbling onward to the Judgment Seat ; 
And toward the guilty, should there be no ruth 
In the just bosom of the God of Truth ; 
Those images of horror and affright. 
Projected on the canvas of the night. 
Should aye be present, wheresoe'er he turn. 
And God's fierce anger never cease to burn ! 
Ah! when the parting heavens some gleam let through, 
Some gleam of promise shining through the blue, 
Ah, more ! when that the Dayspring from on high 
Told that the Sun of Righteousness was nigh ; — 
Waving glad wings of many colored flame, 
Fore-running angels certified He came ; 
Then most of all, when following full soon, 
Upon liis midnight tjurst eternal noon ; 



48 THE MICROCOSM. 

How to the heavenly host his pulses beat, 
Timed to the music of their marching feet ! 

Congenital Blindness — Awards of the Last Day. 

Alas, for those, who, haply blind from birth, 
Have never seen the loveliness of earth ; 
To whose rapt gaze, the spectacle ne'er given 
Of all the dread magnificence of heaven ; 
One mighty blank, one universal black. 
The moving wonders of the Zodiac ; 
The constellations from their fixed abode. 
Shed no sweet influence on their darkling road : 
Their rolling eyeballs turn, and find no ray ; 
An unknown joy, the blessedness of day. 

Between the man, who, in his neighbor's grief, 
With swiftest pity, flies to his relief ; 
And him, whose cruel and unnatural part 
It is to plague and wring his brother's heart, 
How deep the gulf ! how different the award 
At the great final coming of the Lord ! 
In the Last Judgment, all the world shall hear 
The silent thunder prisoned in a tear — * 

* Faraday has shown by the most conclusive experiments that the electricity 
which decomposes, and that which is evolved by the decomposition of a certain 
quantity of matter are alike. A single drop of water therefore contains as much 
electricity as could be accumulated in Soo,ooo Leyden jars — a quantity equal to 
that which is developed from a charged thunder-cloud. 



THE MICROCOSM. 49 

The pent up wrath shall strike the tyrant there, 
Who would not pity, and who would not spare. 

Asy/u/iis for thr Blind. 

Thou, who wert styled th' Apostle of the Blind, 
No bays too green, thine honored brows to bind, 
Who toiled and sacrificed beyond the sea — 
'Tis right to name thee, Valentin Haiiy I* 
To render happier a cheerless lot ; 
Enrich with knowledge those who have it not ; 
To pour new light into the darkened mind. 
And force an entrance where it none can find ; 
By novel methods, and ingenious tools, 
Imparting all the learning of the schools ; 
For loss of one, obtaining recompense 
In the perfection of another sense ; — 
Inspiring music, bringing heaven so near 
They almost think they see it, as the}^ hear — - 



* Louis IX., better known as St. Louis, in 1260 founded the Hospice des Quinze 
I'ingts at Paris — designed, as its name implies, originally for 15 score or 300 per- 
sons — which still exists. This is believed to have been the first public provision 
ever made for the Blind. It was solely eleemosynary. No instruction was at- 
tempted. Although in the i6th century attempts were made to print for the 
Blind in intaglio and afterwards in relief, nothing material was accomplished, 
till 17S4, when Valentin Haiiy, "the apostle of the blind" as the French named 
him, commenced his arduous, and self-denying labors, and laid the foundations of 
the modern system. His pupils became eminent as musicians or mathematicians. 



50 THE MICROCOSM. 

Is like that work, in kind if not degree, 
Done Bartimeus, when Christ made him see. 

Asylums for the Deaf and Dumb. 

Not less their praise, nor less their high reward, 
Th' unequaled heroes of a task more hard. 
Enthusiasts, who labored to bridge o'er 
The gulf of silence, never passed before. 
To reach the solitaire, who lived apart,* 
Cut off from commerce witii the human heart ; 
To whom had been, all goings on below, 
A ceremonious and unmeaning show ; 
Men met in council, on occasions proud. 
Nought but a mouthing and grimacing crowd ; 



*The possibility of teaching the Deaf and Dumb was never conceived by the an- 
cients. Useless to the State, their destruction in infancy was even connived at ; and 
they were classed legally with idiots and the insane. Plunged in a night of the 
profoundest ignorance, sitting apart in utter loneliness, their state was the saddest 
possible. Attempts to instruct them belong mostly to modern times. Three sys- 
tems have been adopted in different countries. i. That of Wallis, Pereira 
Heinicke and Braid wood, which falsely assumed that while signs may give vague 
ideas there can be no precision without words. Consequently the first years under 
this system were devoted almost wholly to learning articulation and reading on 
the lip. 2. That of abbe De I'Epee as improved by Sicard and Bebian, which 
proceeds on the directly opposite theory that there is no idea which may not be 
expressed by signs without words. Sign language has the important advantage, 
besides many others that might be named, of being universal. 3. The American 
system,which is a further modification of De I'Epde's. The number of deaf-mutes 
who have distinguished themselves in science and art is already quite consider- 
able. My friend, Mr. John R. Burnet, farmer and author, living at Livingston, 
N. J., is one of the best informed men in the State. 



THE MICROCOSM. 51 

And all the great transactions of the time, 
An idle scene or puzzling pantomime. 
Children of silence ! deaf to every sound 
That trembles in the atmosphere around, 
Now far more happy — dancing ripples break 
Upon the marge of that once stagnant lake, 
Aye by fresh breezes overswept, and stirred 
With the vibrations of new thoughts conferred. 
No more your minds are heathenish and dumb, 
Now that the word of truth and grace has come ; 
Your silent praise, that penitential tear. 
Are quite articulate to your Saviour's ear. 

Hearing — Powers of Sound — Afiisic of Nature. 

Within a bony labyrinthean cave, 
Reached by the pulse of the aerial wave, 
This sibyl, sweet, and mystic Sense is found. 
Muse, that presides o'er all the Powers of Sound. 
Viewless and numberless, these everywliere 
Wake to the finest tremble of the air ; 
Now from some mountain height are heard to call ; 
Now from the bottom of some waterfall; 
Now faint and far, now louder and more near, 
With varving cadence musical and clear ; 



52 THE MICROCOSM. 

Heard in the brooklet murmuring o'er the lea ; 

Heard in the roar of the resounding sea ; 

Heard in the thunder rolling through the sky ; 

Heard in the little insect chirping nigh ; 

The winds of winter wailing through the woods ; 

The mighty laughter of the vernal floods ; 

The rain-drops' showery dance and rhythmic beat. 

With twinkling of innumerable feet ; 

Pursuing echoes calling 'mong the rocks ; 

Lowing of herds, and bleating of the flocks ; 

The tender nightingale's melodious grief ; 

The sky-lark's warbled rapture of belief — 

Arrow of praise, direct from Nature's quiver, 

Sent duly up to the Almighty Giver. 

■"/5 Music of Art — Iiistnimoital and Vocal. 

If once, ye Powers, with reeds, a rustic Pan, 
Ye tuned idyllic minstrelsies for man, 
These thin dilutions of the soul of song, 
Ye have abandoned, and abandoned long. 
Sweet as the spheral music of the skies. 
The thunder of your later harmonies. 
O fill the void capacious atmosphere' 
With your full sum, and pour it in the ear ; 



THE MICROCOSM. 53 

Drown it with melody, nor let it wade 

Longer in shallows, of the deep afraid. 

Join to all instruments of wind and cords 

The poetry and excellence of words. 

If Country calls, put in the Trumpet's throat 

A loud and stirring and a warlike note ; 

And let there follow an inspiring blast, 

As the long file of heroes hurries past ; 

Then raise th' exultant clamor to its height, 

When crowned as victors, they return from fight. 

Because the service God demands of men 

Is not an intermittent thing of now and then, 

Temples of permanence we rightly raise, 

For the perpetual purposes of praise. 

And build great Organs, in whose tubes of sound, 

Sleeping or waking, ye are always found. 

Awake ! prepare Te Deums ! now awake ! 

Wave your great wings till all the building shake ! 

Rend the low roof, and rend the vault of heaven, 

Bearing the rapture of a soul forgiven ! 

Voice — Ai?' of Expiration, Its Trans/nutations. 

Wonderful instrument, but not so choice 
As is the Organ of the Human Voice. 



54 THE MICROCOSM. 

What compact proof of Heavenly Power and Skill, 

When simplest means sublimest ends fulfill ! 

That two-stringed Lyre — quick strung to every note. 

Placed at the windy entrance of the throat, 

With a divine economy of room, 

So placed it might the smallest space consume, 

There where the aerial currents come and go, 

To feed the vital fires that burn below, 

And with a quickening purifying force, 

The blood to freshen in its onward course — 

Taking the waste, effete and useless breath. 

Charged with the very element of death, 

Converts it into music, glorious shapes 

Of power and beauty, ere that breath escapes. 

A transformation marvelous and strange, 

Unequaled, in the Alchemy of change ; 

Harmonious forces working to condense 

The blazing jewels of intelligence ; 

Diamonds more rich than proudest monarchs wear. 

Formed from the gaseous carbon of the air ; 

Th' imperial currency of human wit, 

Image and superscription stamped on it, 

Coined from the atmosohere— th' exhaustless mine 

Of golden treasures magical and fine — 



THE MICROCOSM. 55 

Chief circulating medium of thought, 

And common mintage by which truth is bought, 

And wisdom in its infinite supply. 

Stored in th' invisible market of the sky ! 

Speech, Accountable Self-recording — Mathematical Problem. 

O Heart and Mouth, in strictest wedlock bound, 
Whence spring th' immortal births of soul and sound ! 
Winged for far flight, your moral offspring sweep 
The air}^ fields of the cerulean deep, 
Up to the awful place, where Judgment waits 
Within Eternity's tremendous gates. 

Philosophy itself may serve to teach, 
No power so fearful as the Power of Speech. 
The idle word, which nothing can recall, 
Breaks sacred silence thrilling through the All ; 
Yea, like a pebble dropped into the sea. 
Ripples the ocean of immensity ; 
An oath profane, the horror of a lie. 
The shuddering Ether bears beyond the sky : 
Sounding through height and depth, its way it takes 
To distant spheres, and endless echoes wakes ; 
After long ages, still can be inferred. 
The sense and nature of each uttered word, 



56 THE MICROCOSM. 

Declared in postured particles, because 
The dance of atoms is by rhythmic laws : 
For that another cannot be the same, 
God calls each atom by a different name ; 
Makes these an alphabet, by which to spell 
Each sentence spoken, and each syllable ; 
Beyond the power of parchment, or of pen, 
Expounding all the utterances of men.* 

Its Social Uses— The Word made Flesh. 

Most genial of the faculties is this, 
And most subservient to social bliss ; 
Fulfills the longing as no other can, 
When man would manifest himself to man ; 

* Mr. Charles Babbage— an English Mathematician of the first rank, formerly 
Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, the Chair of Newton, famous 
also as the inventor of a Calculating Machine, built at a cost to the English 
Government of $85,000, followed by another, involving a still heaver outlay — in a 
work styled "The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise," published in 1838, filled with 
much original and quaint speculation, expresses his faith in the startling doctrine 
that no word or action can ever be eliminated from the records of Nature, but 
that the air is a "vast library," in whose pages are forever written all that man 
has ever said or woman whispered, inasmuch as the aerial pulses which seemed to 
have died out completely might yet be demonstrated by human reason to exist. 
So of the ocean. A being possessed of unbounded powers of mathematical analysis 
might trace the results of any impulse on the fluid, or read back the history of the 
sea in its own billows. And so too, the solid frame of the earth may serve as a 
stereotyped record both of the transactions and the proceedings of its inhabitants; 
for not only the heavings of the greatest earthquakes, but the little local tremors 
which the stamp of a human foot may produce, may all be said to have left their 
memorials in the ground. Heaven and earth are therefore prepared to bear wit- 
ness against the transgressor on the Day of Judgment. Terrible thoughts these, 
but what if they are true ? 



THE MICROCOSM. 57 

The isolated soul shut up no more 

Walks freely forth as through an open door. 

Vainly in inarticulate dumb show, 
Had Nature strove to teach man here below ; 
When finding that intended to reveal, 
Served but the more His presence to conceal, 
God put aside the Vesture of the Skies, 
And walked and talked with men in Human Guise : 
Th' apocalyptic Word made Flesh, made thus 
Communicated Godhead — God With Us. 

Articulation — Nose — Mouth — Smell — Taste. 

Behold how man, the polyglot, employs 
Th' uncompounded elemental noise ! 
Makes endless permutations, mixes breath 
For nice intonings of each shibboleth ! 
Up from the Throat, one little step, we reach 
The cunning moulds and matrices of speech ; 
Formless and void the vocal chaos flows, 
Shaped into Language by the Mouth and Nose ; 
Mellifluous modulations taking place, 
In scented caverns of the hollow face ; 
Sweet mobile Lips, Teeth, Palate, flavorous Tongue, 
Making intelligible the speaking Lung ; 



58 THE MICROCOSM. 

Aiders of Speech, but then the seats as well 
Of the two senses of the Taste and Smell. 

Smell — Odors, Their Subtlety ami [mponderahility. 

The Nerves of Smell, the first the brain to leave. 
Combed and divided through a bony sieve,* 
They, from their tresses of disheveled hair. 
Shake out the tangled fragrance of the air. 
Conversant with all sweetness — Nature brings 
Hither the soul and quintessence of things ; 
Airy solutions of the finer powers. 
Imponderable properties of flowers ; 
Th' aroma of all seasons and all times, 
Kingdoms of nature, continents and climes — 
Too subtle and too spiritual, I ween. 
These for analysis however keen. 
Daintiest of senses, daintily it feeds 
On thymy pastures of the skj^ey meads. 
Drinks from etherial fountains, whence are quaffed 
Delicious lungfulls at one mighty draught, 
Cheering the breast, and sweetening all the blood, 
Like some celestial minister of good. 

*The ethmoid bone (from Tidjiog, "a sieve," and f£(5of, " form"). 



THE MICROCOSM. 59 

B^-eath of Life., Natural and Spiritual. 

God breathed, O breath with heavenly sweetness rife ! 
Into man's nostrils first the breath of life. 
The blissful aura vivified the whole, 
And straightway man became a living soul. 
Then odorous Eden yet more odorous grew, 
As o'er its bowers, th' informing Spirit blew 
Another inner and diviner air, 
Moving within the proper atmosphere. 
That shook the leaves and made the tree-tops nod, 
A mystic wind immediately from God, — 
Rushing and mighty like the Holy Ghost 
Poured out upon the day of Pentecost. 
Still the same Spirit where it lists it blows. 
We know not whence it comes nor where it goes, 
But souls it quickened on Creation's morn. 
Now dead in sin to a new life are born : 
One inspiration of immortal breath 
Creates a life beneath the ribs of death. 

T/tcopiieusty. 

O via sacra, O thrice blessed door. 
Once hallowed with Thy presence, hallow, Lord ! once 
more. 



6o THE MICROCOSM. 

Inbreathe Thyself, my Maker ! fill each cell 

Of my deep breast, and deign with me to dwell. 

Come, my Desire ! Thou theme of heavenly tongues, 

Fulfill the want and hunger of the lungs. 

Be Thou my breath, my laughter, my delight, 

My song by day, my murmured dream by night. 

When hope dilates, and love my bosom warms, 

Be these the product of Thy powerful charms. 

If grief convulses, be it grief for sin, 

Prompt every sigh and make me pure within ; 

Perfumed by Thee " make every breath a spice 

And each religious act a sacrifice." 

Taste — Eliini nation and Waste — Nothing Lost. 

We eat to live : the Gustatory Sense 
(The same as Smell, but with a difference) 
At the pleased portal of the hungry throat. 
From endless sources, neighboring and remote, 
Assembles relishes, and daily feeds 
On these to satisfy the body's needs. 
Each moment, lo ! we die and are reborn ; * 
The old becomes cadaverous and outworn ; 



* " Occasio enim praeceps est propter artis materiam, dico autem corpus, quod 
continue fluit et memento temporis transmutatur." — Galen. 



THE MICROCOSM. 6l 

Beyond the boundary of our every breath, 
Wide yawns the open sepulchre of death ; 
Parts of our living selves give up the ghost ; 
Corrupt, corrupting, use and function lost, 
Benignant Nature with victorious force 
Effects deliverance from the loathed corse 
And body of this death ; in ceaseless flow, 
Fun'ral processions of dead atoms go. 
Thronging life's ways and outward opening gates, 
All unattended, where no mourner waits. 
Because the quick have duties, let the dead 
Bury their dead, the Lord of life hath said. 
No fear that needful ministry or rite 
Shall then be wanting when they pass from sight ; 
Sown on the winds or swallowed of the waves 
They shall not fail of hospitable graves. 
Dear to terrestial and celestial powers. 
Through every moment of the flying hours. 
Earth, careful mother, to her bosom draws 
Each reverent particle subject to her laws ; 
Dust welcomes dust, and all the happy ground 
Rejoices that the lost again is found. 
Again it forms a portion of the mould 
To tread the circle it fulfilled of old. 



62 THE MICROCOSM. 

Again it ministers to the tliirsty root, 
Mounts to the blossom and matures tlie fruit ; 
Eaten again, again it makes a part, 
Or of the thinking brain or feeling heart. 

Human Want and Divine Supply. 

Because we ne'er continue in one stay — 
Our flowing lives still wash their banks away ; 
This colliquation of unstable flesh. 
Invades the old and scarcely spares the fresh ; 
The new formed solid, even, oozes through, 
" Thaws and resolves itself into a dew ;" 
And all is flux, and out ten thousand doors 
Our manly strength perpetually pours — 
We Hunger and We Thirst, and all abroad 
We see spread out the mighty Feast of God. 
Abounding plenty equal to the waste 
With luscious adaptations to the taste ; 
Viands heaped up in such seductive guise. 
Forestalling pleasure looks with sparkling eyes 
The golden produce of the garnered fields, 
Whate'er the valley or the mountain yields, 
The juicy tops of Nature, not that found 
In the dark mineral lumpish underground. 



THE MICROCOSM. 63 

By intermediate vegetative toil, 

And much elaboration of the soil, 

Lifted in air and glowing in the sun, 

We pluck the fruit then when the work is done. 

In curious quest of every dainty known, 

We draw from every month and every zone. 

To pile our boards, the canvas is unfurled 

Of more than half the navies of the world. 

Art intervenes, and as the case requires. 

Concocts the crude with culinar}' fires ; 

Goes forth in nature to extend her range. 

And serve man's love of novelty and change, 

By findings of manipulative skill. 

Testings and tastings, mixing at her will 

Of all the kingdoms, flavorings of the same, 

And seasonings of vegetable flame. 

Imperious Wants I obedient to whose call, 

Armies capitulate, dynasties fall : 

Howe'er the rulers of the earth combine. 

They may not blink the fact that man must dine. 

It might seem little and beneath God's care — 
A punctual ordering of man's common fare ; 
Unwarranted, extravagant, absurd. 
To think our Pater Nosters could be heard — 



64 THE MICROCOSM. 

Did we not know that round our every meal 
Suns wait and serve and mighty planets wheel. 

Lord's Prayer — Hodiernal Bread — Hyi^ienic JJ'/sdo//i. 

Father in heaven, hallowed be Thy name — 
'Tis on Thy fatherhood we build our claim — 
Stoop to our needs, we cannot else be fed, 
Give us this day, as erst, our daily bread. 
Preserve us from perversion and abuse. 
Turning Thy bounties from their proper use ; 
From gluttony and criminal excess, 
Making enough our rule, nor more nor less. 
Instruct us how to choose, lest that we sin 
Against the body's health, the powers within, 
Awful economies and sacred laws, 
Of half our miseries the dreadful cause. 
May we live innocent as at the first, 
Using safe beverages to quench our thirst. 
Our common drink be water from the well. 
Not brewed enchantments of the fires of hell, 
Not tasting unblest cups, by Thee unblest, 
But where Satanic benedictions rest, 
Cursing and killing, maddening the brain — 
Brief joy succeeded by eternal pain. 



THE MICROCOSM. 65 

Ingestion — Digestion — Assimilation. 

Be in our Mouths to sanctify our Food ; 
Begin the process changing it to Blood. 
We dare not call that common and unclean 
Which Thou hast cleansed — nor count that longer mean 
So honored by assimilations grand, 
And exaltations of Thine own right hand, 
As through the channels of the body rolled, 
Th' ingested Morsel comes to be ensouled. 
Wherefore be present, every step attend 
Of its miraculous progress to the end. 
During the perilous passage of the strait, 
O keep fast shut the Laryngeal Gate : 
Adown the Throat while that it gently glides, 
And in the Stomach's secret chamber hides. 
Be there to entertain th' expected guest, 
And to the welcome give a keener zest. 
Make the couch ready : and mid veiling gloom, 
And holy privacy as in a womb. 
Induct into the mysteries of the place . 
Rain down celestial influence and grace 
Upon the nascent neophyte ; prepare 
The lavers of regeneration ; where 
5 



66 THE MICROCOSM. 

By wondrous saturations* for a time, 

And fresh baptisms of the new-born Chyme 

A part all purified, from soil purged clear, 

Made meet and worthy of a higher sphere, 

Enters the veins and mingles with the blood ; 

The rest a stained probationary flood. 

Passing the Gate Pyloric waits awhile. 

Its transformation into purer Chyle. 

Prosper and bless and let the work proceed, 

Each faithful function equal to the need ; 

Teach the strict Lacteals, duly this to guide 

Into the narrow way from out the wide, 

Where freed from feculence all white and clean. 

And trained, through mazes of the Glands between, 

For saintly fellowship and spousals sweet 

With the dear Lymph, as they together meet 

Witliin the Duct Thoracic, mount to gain 

The level of the pierced Subclavian Vein — 

Tempering the mass, to form a fluid part 

Of tliat humanitv which fills the Heart. 



*The Gastric Juice, like the saliva, is not secreted in considerable quantity (Dr. 
Beaumont says not at all) except under the stimulus of recently ing^ested food. It 
IS estimated that the average total quantity secreted in a man of medium size in 24 
hours is 14 pounds, equal to nearly two gallons. This quantity would be altogether 
incredible, were it not, that as soon as it has dissolved its quota of food, it is 
immediately re-absorbed and agains enters into the circulation, together with the 
alimentary .substances which it holds in solution. — Dalton. 



THE MICROCOSM. 67 

Heart — Circulation — Nutrition — Blood ExJiilarations. 

Make room, my Heart !* that pour'st thyself abroad, 
Deep, central, awful mystery of God ! 
Lord of my bosom ! wonder of the breast ! 
"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest :" 
The young white blood, commingled with the old — 
Purple, impure, effete in part, and cold — 
Give needful furtlierance through the Lungs, to where 
It meets the fiery spirits of the air — 
In friendly barter with the growing plants 
Exchanging what they need for what it wants ; 
For dingy carbon, refuse of the frame. 
Receiving back the principle of flame ; 
While mystic cerebrations downward pour 
The human flood to humanize yet more, 
Making it moral, with all passions rife. 
Instinct with mortal and immortal life ; 



*In the Fish, the Heart is a single organ, having one Auricle and one Ventri- 
cle. In Reptiles, it has two Auricles placed side by side, and one Ventricle. In 
Quadrupeds and Man it is double, with two Auricles and two Ventricles ; and 
there are two distinct Circulations — the General or Systemic, and Pulmonary. 
The blood on the Right Side of the Heart, whether found in the Veins or Arter- 
ies, is dark or venous ; on the Left, it is ruddy and bright or arterial. The first 
belongs to the nocturnal side or hemisphere ; the latter to the diurnal — the sun 
having its rising in the capillaries of the lungs, and its setting in those of the 
general system — where the blood loses for the time' its auroral bloom and splendor 
and becomes dark, half devitalized and charged with deadly poison, until having 
completed its circuit, its pristine glitter and beauty are once more restored, as it 



68 THE MICK OCO SM . 

Transfigured thus, thus raised and glorified, 

Complete the circle on the other side, 

Where Auricle and Ventricle with power 

Repeat their grasp five thousand times an hour , 

Closing unresting hands that never tire 

On the one passionate object of desire; 

And through each moment of the night and day 

A traveling joy to every part convey ; 

Filling each cell of all the Organs up, 

As wine is poured into a jeweled cup, 

With the Falernian of the grapes of Heaven, 

The living Blood miraculously given — - 

Endued with plenteous power by which it can 

Rebuild the complex of the perfect man ; 

To every organ like to like impart. 

Distribute brain to brain and heart to heart ; 



reappears on the horizon of the lungs. The rapidity with which the Blood move;; 
is very jjreat. Even in Arteries of the minutest size it is so rapid that the glob- 
ules cannot be distinguished in it on microscopic examination. It is slower in the 
Veins than in the Arteries, in the proportion of two to three, and still slower in 
the Capillaries. Volkman estimates the velocity in the arteries at 12 inches per 
second ; in veins at 8 inches ; in capillaries, i-3oth of an inch. Experiments have 
been made to ascertain the time it takes the blood to pass the entire round of the 
circulation. Traces of a solution of Ferrocyanidc of Potassium introduced into the 
?■/§■/;/ jugular vein of a horse appeared at the Ic/t m twenty to twenty-five sec- 
onds, but this is not decisive of the rate of the circulation, only of the diffusion. 
Results swarm with every heart-beat. Life's innumerable wheels, revolving all 
at once in every organ, make that beat representative of a life-time — a century of 
existence being no more than a calculable number of repetitions of that vital 
second. 



THE MIC R O C S M . 69 

Conquer the years, the wastes of time repair ; 
Add to the body, make the fair more fair : 
Nor potent less to raise to loftiest heights 
Of sensuous pleasures and divine delights — 
Untied to fleshy ministrations — fraught 
With stimulant to Feeling and to Thought, 
Our Ganymede, enlivening with full bowl 
" The feast of reason and the flow of soul." 

Heart — Seat of the Affections — Visceral Modifications. 

Undoubted Sovereign, worthiest to reign, 
Sharer of empire with the regal Brain ! 
(Like omnipresent in the realms of sense, 
Found at the centre and circumference, 
As if by multiplication, every part 
Possessed a sensory and beating heart) 
By virtue of thy birthright from above 
Thine all the high prerogatives of Lovk. 
One with thyself, Love's ample power display, 
Assert its right to universal sway ! 
As thou, so Love is many and yet one, 
Its royal robes of soul and body spun — 
Assorted vestments, filling many a room, 
The beauteous product of the living loom, 



70 THE M I C R O CO S M . 

By the deft fingers of the feelings wrought 
Plying the shuttle with the helping thought — 
The several organs, to their nature true, 
Giving each tunic its distinctive hue, 
One of the colors of refracted light, 
Or the chaste total of religious white — 
Defining Loves, all Family Loves that bind. 
The Love of Country, Love of Human Kind, 
The Love of God all other Loves above, 
The Love of Truth and Right, the Love of Love. 

Within, what gracious sympathies appeal ! 
What visceral yearnings do not mothers feel ! — 
The conscious vitals, full of fond alarms 
For the sweet infant folded in her arms. 
And melting tendernesses, that impart 
Tears to the eyes but laughter to the heart. 

V Woman — Sex — Unity in Difference. 

O loving Woman, man's fulfillment sweet. 
Completing him not otherwise complete ! 
How void and useless the sad remnant left 
Were he of her, his nobler part bereft ! 
Of her who bears the sacred name of Wife, 
The joy and crown and glory of his life, 



THE MICROCOSM. 7' 

The Mother of his Children, whereby he 

Shall live in far off epochs yet to be. 

Conjoined but not confounded, side by side 

Lying so closely nothing can divide ; 

A dual self, a plural unit, twain. 

Except in sex, to be no more again ; 

Except in Sex — for sex can nought efface, 

Fixed as the granite mountain on its base — 

But not for this less one, away to take 

« 
This sweet distinction were to mar not make. 

Dearer for difference in this respect, 

As means of rounding mutual defect. 

Woman and Man all social needs include ; 

Earth filled with men were still a solitude. 

In vain the birds would sing, in vain rejoice. 

Without the music of her sweeter voice. 

In vain the stars would shine, 'twere dark the while 

Without the light of her superior smile. 

To blot from earth's vocabularies one 

Of all her names were to blot out the sun. 

Lo7'e of the Sexes— Kihh AiisuhtciL 

O wondrous Hour, supremest hour of fate, 
When first tlie Soul discerns its proper Mate, 



72 THE MICROCOSM. 

By inward voices known as its elect — 

Distanced by love, and infinite respect, 

Fairer than fairest, shining from afar, 

Throned in the heights, a bright particular star 

The glory of the firmament, the evening sky 

Glad with the lustre of her beaming eye. 

Young Love, First Love, Love, haply at first sight, 

Smites likes the lightning, dazzles like the light ; 

Chance meeting eyes shoot forth contagious flame, 

Sending the hot blood wildly through the frame. 

By strange enchantment violently strook, 

The total being rushes with a look ; 

A beauty never seen before, except some gleams 

Purpling the atmosphere of blissful dreams. 

Wakens rare raptures and sensations new. 

Both soul and body thrilling through and through. 

Says sage Experience, sighing o'er the past, 
These dear illusions will not always last ; 
For beauty fades and disappointment clings 
To the reality of human things. 
It may be so — it may be, lover's sight 
Surveying all things by love's purple light, 
Sees not the faults possession shall disclose, 



OQ B 



3 w 



It* S) 




THE MICROCOSM. 73 

Nor the sharp thorn concealed l)eneath the rose. 

But if thus Nature her great ends attain 

The pomps of fancy dazzle not in vain. 

The pleasing falsehood of perfection fiits, 

But not the Love, that in contentment sits 

Among the Dear Ones of its happy home, 

Blest with sweet foretastes of the heaven to come. 

Deciduous charms of face unmissed depart, 

While bloom the fadeless beauties of the heart ; 

Inward conformity, and gradual growth 

Of moral likeness, tightening bonds of both, 

Perfect the marriage, which was but begun 

Upon that day they were pronounced one. 

True Love — Spurious Love. 

True Love is humble, thereby is it known, 
Girded for service, seeking not its own ; 
Exalts its object, timid homage pays. 
Vaunts not itself, but speaks in self-dispraise. 
"Look not on me ," it says, "for ' I am black. 
In thee all fullness is, in me all lack; 
But what I have and am are wholly thine. 
Vast were the grace would'st thou give thine for mine." 



74 T If K M I C R O C O S M . 

Let Love but enter, it converts the churl, 
And makes the miser lavisli as an earl; 
The strict walls of his prison, giving way, 
Fall outward and let in the light of day ; 
Released from base captivity to pelf, 
He upwards soars into a nobler self ; 
And hands, that once did nought but clutch and hoard 
Now emulate the bounty of the Lord ; 
Hold up a mirror, that reflects the face 
Of Him whose heart is love and man-ward grace. 

O how unlike to this, so chaste, refined, 
Magnanimous, benevolent and kind, 
Is that base thing, defiling and defiled. 
Born of unbridled lusts and passions wild. 
Which soon of all the virtues rings the knell 
And sends its subjects headlong dov/n to hell ! 
The hidden canker of a vicious heart 
Spreads mortal sickness to the farthest part ; 
Th' infected body rots from day to day 
Till death contemptuous calls the soul away, 
To its own place its sentence to fulfill, 
"Let him that filthy is be filthy still." 



THE MICROCOSM. 75 

Charity — Physician — Opiferque per Orbeni Dicor* 

O ye, devoted to the Healing Art, 
By solemn consecration, set apart 
To be the ministers of God above 
In the sublime Activities of Love ; 
Whose special function 'tis to give relief 
In the dark hours of suffering and of grief ; 
Between the living and the dead to stand 
Where fall the shafts of death on either hand ; 
Without one thought of flight, to still maintain 
Perpetual battle with the Powers of Pain ; 
With a fine arrow from a well bent bow 
Transfixing fatally the murd'rous foe ; 
And with an arm made powerful to save, 
Snatching the destined victims of the grave ; — 
The lofty nature of your office such. 
You cannot magnify the same too much. 
Which Tullyf even, eloquently lauds, 
As that which lifts man nearest to the gods. 

* This motto of the Medical Society of New Jersey is taken from the fable of 
Phoebus and Daphne in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Lib. I., v. 521-522. Phoebus is re- 
presented as saying : 

" Invenlum medicina meum est ; opi/erquc per orbeni 
])icoy, ct herbarum subjecta potentia nobis." 

Physic is my discovery ; and I 

Help-bearing [One] am called throughout the world. 

To us subjected is the power of herbs. 

+ Nulla re homines ad deos propius accedunt quam salutem hominibus dando. — 
Cicero. 



76 THE MICROCOSM. 

Nosology — Auscultation of Heart and Lungs 

How many forms of sickness man befall, 
Sorrow and pain the common lot of all ! 
Science inquires, and, as its kinship finds, 
Makes classes, orders, families and kinds. 
Grouping and marshalling diseases so 
You can them better nominate and know. 
But no nosology did e'er include 
The total of the mighty multitude. 

Wise to interpret each prophetic sign. 
To pierce the veil and hidden fates divine, 
When parents ask, with grief and terror wild, 
" Canst thou not save my darling, save my child ? " 
You skilled to catch, while listening to the breath, 
The distant footsteps of approaching death, 
May, in the sighing of the suffering lung 
And in its stillness, hear alike a tongue 
That syllables oracular reply : 
■" Impossible, 'tis fixed, your child must die." 
Response more dread not Delphic prophetess 
E'er shuddered from her murmurous recess. 

With rush of countless chariots, palpitates 
Life's great metropolis through all her gates ; 



THE MICROCOSM. 11 

Their crimson wheels with a perpetual sound, 
Coming and going in their endless round, 
Are heard tumultuous as they hurrying throng 
Th' Appian or Flaminian ways along : 
* Tis yours to know next hour all this will fail, 
And death and silence everywhere prevail. 

Phxsiciaii s Cliaracier and Aims — Science Pri{i:;ressii'e. 

O it is well, that ye have hearts to feel, 
And ears not deaf to pity's soft appeal, 
Putting no difference 'twixt rich and poor, 
Plying with equal zeal the means of cure, 
Not deeming it becoming to regard 
Color or rank or person or reward. 
The man of impure life and sordid aims, 
He smuts his office and his calling shames ; 
Him you disown and place him under ban 
As nothing better than a charlatan. 
Believing needless ignorance a crime, 
You strive to reach the summit of your time ; 
To old age learning up from early youth 
Your life one long apprenticeship to truth. 
Wisely suspicious sometimes of the new. 
Ye give alert acceptance to the true : 



7'' THE MICROCOSM. 

Even though it make old science obsolete, 
It with a thousand welcomes still you greet. 
" Knowledge is power," and here 'tis power to save, 
A power like God's to rescue from the grave. 
Each year adds something — many things ye know 
Vour sires knew not a Hundred Years Ago. 
Art grown to more, your sons will higher climb. 
And make the Coming Centuries sublime ; 
Till Christ's Millennial Kingdom shall begin, 
And put an end to sickness and to sin. 
Heights of the Future ! breezy with the breath 
Of vernal quickening to the fields of Death, 
In the far distance of the long before. 
We think we see your misty summits soar ; 
Though scarce distinguished from the mingling skies 
How glad the sight to our believing eyes ! 

Spiritual Maladies — Christ tJic Great Physieiaii. 

Ah ! there are maladies beyond your skill ; 
You cannot cure depravity of will ; 
You cannot mend a moral nature flawed. 
Convert a mind at enmity with God ; 
You cannot terminate the inward strife, 
Restore the broken harmony of life ; 



THE MICROCOSM. 79 

With all th' armentarium of Art 

Restrain the outflow of an evil heart ; 

Cleanse by detergent washings of the skin 

Th' immedicable leprosy of sin ; 

Remove the lunacy that chooses death, 

And imprecates destruction with each breath. 

When came the Great Physician of the Skies, 

To find a remedy that should suffice, 

Knowing 'twas not in mineral or wood, 

He sought it in a Pharmacy of Blood ; 

And since none other but His own was pure, 

He transfused that to consummate the cure. I 

Man curing when past cure — content to give 

Himself to die to make His patient live. 

Death — l/iiiiiorfa/itv — Rcsiirrcifion — Spiritual Body. 

Death spreads, no more — a black and wrathful cloud 
The smiling infinite of heaven to shroud — 
A harmless mist, instead, divinely bright 
With dewy splendors of the morning light 
That scarcely serves th' eternal world to hide. 
Where loved ones gone before in bliss abide. 
Lo ! what a miglity beckoning of hands. 
And wafted welcomes of angelic bands, 



8o THE MICROCOSM. 

As one of Christ's dear number upward springs, 
And first essays his wondrous gift of wings. 
Such greetings did your recent coming wait, 

aged pilgrim ! at the heavenly gate, 
When man's allotted years on earth now spent. 
You, dying, "to the greater number went."* 
Wliat thougli your body moulders 'neath the sod, 
Its untouched life is hid with Christ in God. 

1 heard a voice proclaiming from the skies : 
"The dead shall live, with my dead body rise." 

Awake and sing, O ye that dwell in dust ! 

Because He lives, who is your life, ye must. 

His quickening Spirit shall go forth again. 

His power o'ershadow and His love impregn ; 

The slumbering germs dispersed through land and sea, 

The buried ovules of identity, 

Shall suddenly unfold, and all the Earth 

Be as a woman in the pangs of birth. 

The Body born, not mortal like that sown, 

But kindred and resemblant to Christ's own : 

Admiring angels shall the sight applaud. 

Blazing with all the majesty of God ! 

*Abiit ad plures. If this phrase was an apt and expressive equivalent for 
death two thousand years ago, how much more now. 



COSMOS. 

PSALM CIM.— T'wo Versions. 
GOD IN NATURE. 
MORNING HYMN. 



COSMOS.* 



PSALM CIV. 



FIRST VERSION. 



o 



LORD my God ! Thou art 
Above conception great ; 

Nature Thy wardrobe is, in part, 
The purple of Th}^ state. 



'^1 Thy garment is the Hght: 

Around Tliee, lo ! are drawn 
The starry mantle of the night, 
The vesture of the dawn. 

PSALM CIV. 

BLESS the Lord, O my soul. O Lord 2 Who coverest thy.self with light as 

my God thou art very great, thou art with a garment : who stretchest out the 

clothed with honor and majesty : [Heb. heavens like a curtain; [i.e. ^a /<r«/, or 

with glory and ltemtty.'\ pavilion.'\ 

* Ale.xander Von Humboldt, in his " Cosmos," remarks : " It might be said one 
single Psalm (the hundred and fourth) represents the image of the whole Cosmos . . . 
We are astonished to find, in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole 
universe — the heavens and the earth— sketched with a few bold touches." Bishop 
Lowlh in his Lectures refers again and again to this Psalm (or Idyllium, as he some- 
where calls it), and always in terms of unbounded admiration. He says : " There is 
nothing of the kind e.xtant (indeed nothing can be conceived) more perfect than 
this hymn, whether it be considered with respect to its intrinsic beauties, or as a 
model of that species of composition " Lord Hacon dedicates to his " very good 



84 COSMOS. 

The heavens Thou dost extend, 
As a pavilion fair ; 
tsl Thy chambers' beams Thou dost suspend 
In watery depths of air. 

The clouds Thy chariot are ; 
W The winged winds Thy steeds ; 
To bear Thy messages afar 
The flaming lightning speeds. 

ts] The earth Thou founded hast 
On law's eternal base, 
That nothing should, while time shall last, 
Remove it from its place. 



3 Who layeth the beams of his cham- his angels^ the flajni7ig fire his viinis- 
bers in the waters ; who maketh the tersi\ 

clouds his chariot ; who walketh upon 5 Who laid the foundations of the 

the wings of the wind. earth, that it should not be removed for- 

4 Who maketh his angels spirits ; his ever. [Heb. " M'ho hath founded the 
ministers a flaming fire ; [In the French earth on its bases."] 

translation it is — IVho ina/ceth the winds 



friend, Mr. George Herbert," a version, executed in 'the heroic couplet— one of 
the few productions of his none too gracious Muse. Of the two versions here giv- 
en, the first is based more upon the Received Te.\t, the other on the Marginal 
Reading, or Hebrew, where this differs. 

[ Cosmos— a Greek word, meaning primarily "order ", order with beauty as a 
result, /. <r. " beautiful order" — came early to stand specifically for the universe 
or world, the world contemplated as a beautiful system, characterized by the most 
perfect order. The synonymous term Macrocosvt^ signifying explicitly the great [or 
whole] world, is sometimes used to mark opposition more distinctly to the Micro- 
cosm., or the little world of man. ] 



COSMOS. 85 

i''! The garment of the deep 

Around it all was poured : 
Above the mountains' highest steep 
The haughty waters roared. 

t?] Thy dread rebuke they heard ; 
They fled, they hasted down 
Before the thunder of Thy word, 
The terror of Thy frown. 

I8] They climb the mountains' height, 
They down the valleys roll. 
Wave chasing wave in headlong flight 
To the appointed goal. 

t<5] There Thou a bound hast set, 
That never more the main 
Howe'er the loud waves rage and threat 
May drown the earth again. 



6 Thou coveredst it with the deep as <^o down by the valleys [or, the inouni- 
with a garment : the waters stood above ains ascend, the Talleys descend^ unto the 
the mountains. place which thou hast founded for them. 

7 At thy rebuke they fled : at the 9 Thou hast set a bound that they 
voice of thy thunder they hasted away. may not pass over ; that they turn not 

8 They f(o up by the mountains ; they again to cover the earth. 



86 



COSMOS. 



t'°] Into the vales, among the liills, 
A thousand fountains burst; 
There run cool brooks and murmuring rills 
tii] For beasts to slake their thirst. 

f'^^ The fowls of heaven have near 
Their favorite retreat, 
Among the branches singing clear 
Their happy songs and sweet. 

['3] From out the blessed sky 

Thou send'st the genial rain, 
And thirsty vales and hill-tops dry 
Revive and laugh again. 

b4l Thy breath is in the fields. 

Thy power beneath the sod. 
Each mead and cornfield tribute yields 
And owns tlie present Cjod. 



10 He sendeth the springs into the 
valleys, which run [Heu. lya/zt] among 
the hills. 

11 They give drink to every beast of 
the field ; the wild asses quench [sla/^-e] 
their thirst. 

12 By them shall the fowls of the 
heaven have their habitation which 



sing Ygive a voice] among the branches. 

13 He watereth the hills from his 
chambers; the earth is satisfied with the 
fruit of thy works. 

14 He causcth the grass to grow for 
the cattle, and herb for the service of 
man ; that he may bring food out of the 
earth : 



COSMOS. 87 

[15] For sake of man and beast, 
To satisfy their needs, 
Exhaustless Nature spreads this feast. 
This miracle proceeds. 

[i61 Majestic cedars prop 

The nests on Lebanon ; 
t'7] The stork prefers the fir-tree's top 

To build her house upon. 

I'^l On craggy summits, where 
No other foot can tread, 
The wild-goats seek a refuge there. 
By wondrous instinct led. 

Thou dost for all prov-ide 

Whate'er their natures ask — 
A sphere, and faculty to guide, 

A purpose, imd a task. 

15 And wine that maketh glad the sap; the cedars of Lebanon, which he 
heart of man, and oil to make his face hath planted ; 

to shine [Heu. to make his face to shine 17 Where thebirdsmake theirnests- as 

ivith oil. or, more than o//], and bread for the stork, the tir-trees are her house, 

which strensjtheneth man's heart. 18 The high hills are a refuge for the 

16 The trees of the Lord arc full of wild goats ; and the rocks for the conies. 



S8 COSMOS. 

t'9] The setting sun, the rising moon, 
Their proper seasons wait — 
For punctual Nature's ne'er too soon, 
Nor ever yet too late. 

•■^"l As down heaven's headlong steep 
The dewy night is hurled, 
Forth from their dens all wild beasts creep, 
While darkness wraps the world. 

L^'^ Young lions roar for prey. 

And seek their meat from God ; 
But when the sun arises, they 
[22I Nq longer roam abroad. 

l=il Man now, refreshed by sleep, 
Goes forth at morning light, 
To plough the fields, to sow or reap, 
Till the return of night. 



19 He appointeth the moon for sea- prey, and seek their meat from God. 
sons : the sun knoweth his going down. 22 The sun ariseth, they gather them- 

20 Thou makcst darkness, and it is selves together, and lay them down in 
night : wherein all the beasts of the for- their dens. 

est do creep forth \W¥,v.. all the beasts 23 Man goeth forth unto his work and 

thereof do tratiiplc on the /orest\. to his labor until the evening. 

21 The young lions roar after their 



COSMOS. 89 

t24l O Lord, how mam' fold 

Tlie products of Tliy liand ! 
How wise ! how wondrous to beliold ! 
How admirably planned ! 

f^5] And not the earth alone, 
But the un fathomed sea 
Is filled with myriads unknown, 
Whose being is in Thee. 

[26] There go the ships, and there 
Leviathan disports, 
And other beasts the waters bear — 
Linumerable sorts. 

I27] These all on Thee depend, 

All wait on Thee for food ; 
i=3i Thine open hand Thou dost extend 

And they are filled with good. 



24 O Lord, how manifold are thy leviathan, whom thou has made IHkp.. 
works ! in wisdom has thou made them >'"'™ J '" I-''^y t'le'ein. 

all ; the earth is full of thy riches. , ■'7 These wait all upon thee ; that 

' . , . , . , thou maycst give them therr meat in 

25 So is this preai and wide sea, jjjjg seasim 

wherein are thinss creeping innumera- ^8 That thou frivcst them they gather: 

ble, both small and great bea.sts. ^^wu openest thine hand, they are filled 

26 There go the ships; there is that with good. 



COS A/ OS. 

l^^^l Tluit moment Thou dost liide, 
Benignant L<m"(1 I Thy face, 
They down t(j swift destruction glide 
Thev die and leave no trace. 

M Thou spread'st Thy brooding wing, 
Thou sendest forth Thy breath, 
And countless forms of life upspring 
From out the dust of death. 

The earth, that late was seen 

Shrunk by the fatal cold, 
Warmed by Thy smile, appears as green 

And l)eauteous as of old. 

bd Thy glory doth endure, 

Thy goodness doth not pass, 
Thy works reflect Thine image pure, 
Distinct as in a glass. 



are created : and thou renewest the 

20 Thou hidest thy face, they are face of the earth, 
troubled ; thou takestavvay their breath, ^j -phg glory of the Lord shall endure 

they die, and return to their dust. forever; the Lord shall rejoice in his 

30 Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they works. 



COSMOS. 91 

M Awe-struck beneath Thy gaze, 

Earth shakes from South to North ; 
At Thy bare touch the mountains blaze, 
Volcanic fires burst forth. 

[33] While I have power to praise. 
And being have and breath, 
My joyful songs to Thee I'll raise. 
Nor shall they cease at death. 

L34] What tongue cannot repeat. 

That silence shall express — 
My thoughts of Thee shall still be sweet 
Whose love is fathomless. 

[33] Though Thou canst be severe. 
As impious men shall know, 
Yet to the humble and sincere 
Thv grace doth overflow. 



32 He looketh on the earth, and it 34 My meditation of him shall be 
trembleth ; he toucheth the hills, and sweet ; I will be glad in the Lord, 
they smoke. 35 Let the sinners be consumed out 

33 I will singf unto the Lord as long of the earth, and let the wicked be no 
as I live ; I will sing praise to my God more. Bless thou the Lord, O my soul, 
while I have my being. Praise ye the Lord. 



92 COSMOS. 

My soul, bless Thou the Lord ! 

Glad hallelujahs sing ! 
Let rapturous praise be ever poured 

From an exhaustless spring! 



PSALM CIV. 



SECOND VERSION. 



o 



LORD my God ! Thou art, 
Of all that is, the soul, 
The mystery of every part, 
The glory of the whole. 



W Thou art the Light of light, 
Light is Thy dazzling veil. 
Compared with this. Thy raiment white, 
The light of suns is pale. 

With high aerial grace, 

The azure firmament 
Thou hangest o'er the empty place. 

In likeness of a tent. 



COSMOS. 93, 

£3] Thy chambers' buoyant beams 
Rest on that upper sea, 
Where unseen rivers flow, and streams 
Pour tribute silently. 

Thou makest clouds Thy car, 
[4] By winds tempestuous driven ; 
Th' obedient lightnings bear afar 
The messages of Heaven. 

[5] Immovably Thy hand 

The earth established ; still. 
Beneath its strong foundations, stand 
The pillars of Thy will. 

[6] Thou poured'st the deep around, 

Whose waters roared and swirled 
Above the mountains of a drowned 
And ocean buried world. 

[7] At Thy rebuking word, 

They trembling fled away ; 
The thunder of Thy voice they heard 
And hastened to obey. 



94 COSMOS. 

W- In endless ebb they shrink 
To lower levels fast — 
The mountains rise, the valleys sink — 
Till, gathered at the last, 

!9l They keep the place assigned, 
Th' unsounded depth of seas. 
By bars of adamant confined 
And Thy unchanged decrees. 

M In valleys cool and sweet 

Spring brooks and murmuring rills, 
That walk the meads with shining feet 
And run among the hills. 

["] Beasts of the field there drink, 

Wild asses thirst allay ; 
['=] Among the trees that shade the brink 

Sing happy birds all day. 

['3] Thou water'st all the land, 
And makest glad the sod ; 
The earth contented owms the hand 
And husband rv of God. 



COSMOS. 95 

f'4] Thou makest grass to spring 
For cattle, and dost plan 
Supplies of every needful thing 
For the support of man. 

['5] The tilled and teeming soil 

Brings forth the foodful wine, 
That cheers the heart of man, and oil 
That makes his face to shine. 

M The cedars of the Lord, 
The pride of Lebanon, 
With plenteous sap and vigor stored, 
Thou planted'st every one. 

['7] The birds there build, and hide 
Their nests from human ken ; 
Fir-trees for storks a house provide 
Far from the haunts of men. 

1 18] The wild goats climb the steep 
Of friendly hills that mocks 
Pursuing feet, and ccniies creep 
For safetv in the rocks. 



96 COSMOS, 

All these Thy thoughts employ, 
Thy tender mercies share, 

The great and mean alike enjoy 
Thy universal care. 

1'9] The changeful moon observes 
Thy ordinances yet ; 
The sun his orbit keeps, nor swerves, 
And knows his time to set. 

M Thou makest dark — 'tis night- 
Mid settling shadows brown, 
Wild beasts with eyeballs flashing light 
The forest trample down, 

[^'] Young lions roar for prey. 

And food from thee require ; 

[22] But when the sun arises, they 
Back to their dens retire. 

[23] After the night's repose, 

Refreshed in every power, 
Man to his work and labor goes 
Until the evening hour. 



COSMOS. gi 

M O Lord, how manifold 

Thy works, in wisdom framed ! 
The earth is full of wealth untold. 
Beneficence unnamed. 

t^s] So this great sea and wide, 

Where things unnumbered creep : 
Beasts small and great there swiftly glide, 
And populate the deep. 

[26] There go the ships ; there plough 
Monsters of mighty fin, 
That huge leviathan whom Thou 
Hast made to play therein. 

[27] These wait without alarm 

On Thee, their bounteous Lord, 
Who hang'st Creation on Thine arm, 
And feed'st it at Thy board. 

[28] Thy love and pity grand 

Assure them timely food : 
Thou op'nest Thy paternal hand, 

And they are filled with good. 
7 



98 COSMOS. 

[29] Thou hid'st Thy face, and they 
Are struck with mortal fear ; 
Thou takest soon their breath away, 
They die and disappear : 

[3°] Thy Spirit broods above — 

They live, in number more ; 
The earth beneath Thy smile of love, 
Seems fairer than before. 

1^31] The glory of Thy power 

Shall stand, as it has stood 
Since that divine rejoicing hour 
Thou madest all things good. 

t32] Earth trembles at the stroke 

Of Thy swift-glancing eyes ; 
The hills Thou touchest and they smoke, 
Volcanic flames arise. 

[33] O Lord my God I I fling 

Me down at Thy dear feet ; 
Tiiere will I lie, and gladly sing 
Adoi^ino- anthems sweet. 



COSMOS. 99 



[35] Bless thou the Lord, my soul ! 
Permitted as thou art, 
Of this majestic cosmic whole, 
To form a noble part. 



GOD IN NATURE. 

TO see with eyes of wonder, and with heart 
Of worship, God, in all — the Mystery, 
That renders sacred most familiar things — 
With priestly ministrations here to stand 
In the grand Temple of the Universe, 
Voicing the praises of all creatures mute, 
This is Religion, and for this alone 
Was man created sovereign of the world. 

Yea ! all things are of God. This infinite 
And unimaginable Universe, 
Built up of atoms, hath no other Cause, 
No other Father. II is unutterable Will 
Is the foundation on wliich Nature rests. 
God undcrlicth every meanest grain ; 



lOO COSMOS. 

There, even there, is His omnipotence 
And love and wisdom, else it could not be. 
Glorious with a divine significance. 
And full of mighty motives to adore. 
Is the dull clod we tread beneath our feet. 
The shadow of each footfall covers space 
Made awful with the tokens of the Unseen. 
Of common dust, no handful but contains 
Problems for Science, arguments for Faith, 
That not the patient and untiring search 
Of studious years can number or exhaust. 
There power is resident, and forces work 
In secrecy and silence. 'Tis a part 
Of the great whole, indissolubly joined, 
And needful to the mighty equipoise 
Of all the orbs that circulate in space. 
Subtract that element, and means of strength, 
And the great pillars that support the world 
Shall crumble instantly and fall to wreck. 
It lies, and shall yet lie, where it has lain 
From the beginning, in its Maker's palm. 
An instrument of power to do His will. 
A gust of summer wind sweeps suddenly 



COSMOS. 

Along this dry frequented thoroughfare. 
Pursue each particle of flying dust ; 
O'ertake and seize the air-blown fugitive ; 
Strictly interrogate, and, if need be, 
Extort confession from reluctant lips ; 
Compel th' imprisoned secret, whence it came 
And what it is. It has a history. 
Lo ! ages back it wrought, and, ever since, 
In various forms, through changes manifold 
Of protean existence, played its part. 
Perhaps it dwelt with Adam ere he sinned 
In Paradise, and fed the healthful springs 
Of an immortal vigor ; otherwise with Eve, 
To make her first and fairest of her sex, 
Supreme in unimagined loveliness. 
Wondrous its essence then. O Ignorant ! 
Who vainly deem aught mean or meaningless, 
Since in the very ultimates of things. 
In fragmentary atoms, God is seen 
Minutely miniatured, His image traced 
In multiplied reflections clear and bright, 
As some chance-shattered mirror truly shows 
The object that confronts it in each part. 



)2 COSMOS. 

If what is least reveals Him : testifies 
Surely and sweetly of the f)resent God ; 
If each dull particle of sordid earth 
The latent light of Deity enshrines, 
Whose liberated and outbursting pomp. 
The lustre of the diamond would shame. 
And stain the radiance of all the stars ; 
If dust is eloquent and atoms preach ; 
If elementary component parts. 
With separate utterances of pregnant proof. 
And mystic characters compactly writ. 
Are each and all condensed embodiments. 
Examples and epistles of His love ; 
With what a rapturous, o'erwhelming might 
Of certainty, and bliss of kneeling awe. 
The glorious Aggregate and wondrous Whole, 
So all ablaze with Godhead, on the sight 
Now presses, and invites my trembling lyre ! 

Opens the eye, and, lo, a Universe ! 
A flash of vision issuing from the lids 
Of darkness ; an ubiquity of thought, 
A rush of consciousness o'erflowing space, 
And reaching boundaries of worlds so far, 



C O S M OS. r 03 

That Light's swift messenger, dispatched from thence 

At the creation, has but just arrived. 

O my Mind's Beautiful ! My own Heart's Bride ! 

That, with surrender of thy powerful charms. 

Leaps to th' encounter of my Soul's embrace ! 

O inexpressible Reality ! the All ! 

So multiform and marvellous ; so near 

And neighboring ; as day familiar I Sleep 

A while excludes, but, punctual as the Morn, 

At the low portal of th' awakened Sense, 

Thou stoop'st to enter in with all thy train. 

Ye dwellers in mud-huts, who look, perchance, 
With squint and hungry eyes and pining heart. 
At the palatial mansions of the rich. 
Angry with Fortune, wherefore are ye thus ? 
Ungrateful ! is not this your Father's house — 
This domed and decorated Universe — 
And have ye not the privilege of sons ? 
All da}' and half the night ye are abroad, 
Awake and wonder-struck. What matters it 
How mean your dormitory, you asleep? 
How rude or scant your chamber's furniture ? 
Sleep takes no knowledge, occupied with dreams, 
Haply reversive of your differing lots. 



I04 COSMOS. 

Costly or coarse my couch, he it my wont, 
Always to leave Sleep's leaden doors ajar. 
That the first glimmerings of diluted light, 
Dusk heralds of the Dawn, may enter in. 
And rouse me from short slumber. Who would wish 
In such a world to waste the precious hours? 
To tarry snoring in a slothful bed, 
What time the risen and rejoicing lark 
Goes up to meet the Morning? Yet once more. 
While in my eyeballs lives unquenched the day, 
I would beliold that miracle of God. 

(''^surping Night sits throned among the Stars, 
Her dreadful shadow filling all the void, 
Sovereign and sole. But, lo ! her Rival comes 
To hurl her from her seat. Already, see ! 
Prevenient splendors run along the sky ; 
The East each moment brightens more and more, 
As nears the jeweled chariot of the Sun, 
Where rides in awful state the King of Day. 
Lances and spears and javelins of flame 
Rain upward, an inverted shower, and wound 
And put to fliglit the ]ninisliab]e Dark, 
Guiltv and filled with iirnominious fears. 



COSMOS. 105 

Not so the blameless and unfearing Clouds, 

Born of the Light, and Children of the Sun. 

These do not fly, but motionless and calm, 

With grief of absence and long watching pale, 

Now flushed with pleasure at his near approach. 

In reverent, expectant posture, wait 

To smile back welcome to their glorious Sire, 

Who seals, Good morrow ! with a heavenly kiss. 

All things put off their melancholy mien. 

The Earth, that wept all night her absent lord, 

Her cold cheek wet with tears, now makes each drop 

A brilliant mirror to reflect her joy. 

The streams sing louder; and unnumbered birds 

Flitting from bough to bough in the green wcjod. 

Or high in air, exert their little throats 

To testify delight. The flowers, which shut 

Last night their gaily painted leaves, and hid 

And husbanded their store of sweets, yiekl up 

Their gathered fragrance. Greener gleams the grass. 

The beautiful foliage of all the trees 

Quivers with secret rapture. Zephyrs soft, 

Breezes Favonian, feel new pulses beat 

Within, and waking wave invisible wings. 

But what a glory crowns the mountain-tops, 



:o6 COSAfOS. 

When bursts the buddina^ Day into full flower_ 
Uprising from th' abyss like world new-made 
The blazing Wonder comes. It touches now, 
Now overtops the liartli's circumference, 
And pours great floods of light into the void,. 
And fills up all the mighty gulfs of space — 
The flux and fullness of that shoreless sea 
Which deluges and drowns and swallows all, 
Yea ! and baptizes all things unto God. 

Who can resist the impulse of glad praise ? 
Father of Lights I Sun of the Universe, 
Here imaged ! Thee, we magnify, we bless. 
We worship ! we have greatest cause. 
Of all Thy creatures. Thou, to man alone. 
Hast given mind, imagination, heart ; 
The knowledge of Thyself and of Thy works ;. 
The inspiration and the joy of Faith. 
Enlightened by Th}' immaterial beams. 
He sees a beauty others cannot see. 
He hears a melody no others hear ; 
He feels a rapture none else comprehends. 
Well may he join the general jubilee; 
As first in dignity be first in praise ; 
As first in favor foremost too in thanks ; 



COSMOS. 107 

Articulate voice and utterance to all, 
As in himself the sum of all, and more ; 
His animal perfection topped and crowned 
With a religious and immortal soul. 
Electric with a myster}^ of life, 
Related to that mystery divine. 
Which dwells in all, and is the soul of all, 
Whence, like a body oppositely charged. 
He touches nature, and sustains a shock 
Thrilling his being to its lowest depths. 



MORNING HYMN. 



G-' 



OD, my security ! 
Let me in puritv 
Hymn Thy high praises while morning's yet dark- 
Slumbering humanity 
Dreaming of vanity, 
How is it shamed by the worshipping lark I 

Lowly in attitude, 
Musical gratitude 
Fain would I pour to Thee fervent and sweet — 



io8 COSMOS. 

Thank Thee in verity, 
Bless in sincerity, 
Wonder, and worship, and wait at Thy feet ! 

Thou, whose benignity, 

Hellish malignity 
Baffling, with sleep refresheth the world — 

Nature's sweet chirrupings, 

Warblings and worshippings, 
Hear, while the banner of day is unfurled ! 

Pride of the firmament. 
Fadeless and permanent, 

Star of the morning ! begin the soft lay — 
Lovingly lingering, 
Singing, and fingering 

Viols of sweetness preluding the day ! 

Constellar mysteries ! 
Known are your histories. 

Countless and boundless, ye rose at His call- 
Boast His ubiquity, 
Greater antiquity. 

Always and everywhere, God all in all ! 



COSMOS. 109- 

Queen of serenity, 

Grace and amenity, ♦ 

Walking in brightness and blessing the earth — 

Aye in thy wandering, 

Fondly be pondering, 
Proofs of His matchless and manifold worth ! 

Orient hoverings ! 

Kindlings and coverings ! 
Flaming the firmament, flashing afar. 

Duskiness scattering, 

Mountain-tops flattering. 
Chasing my spirit's gloom, tell whence ye are I 

Type of Divinity ! 

Over infinity 
Throwing a mantle of beauty and light ; 

Life of the perishing. 

Cheering and cherishing. 
Blazon His goodness and wisdom and might \ 

Eartli ! in simplicity. 
Sing thy felicity. 
Bosomed in azure, and bride of the sky ; 



> COSMOS. 

Favored and beautiful. 
No more undutiful, 
Low at His footstool contentedly lie ! 

Wondrous reality, 

Forms of vitality, 
Countless in number, O come in your need ! 

Come ye, adoringly ! 

Come ye, imploringly ! 
Every one trusting His love will you feed. 

Airy profundity ! 

Round this rotundity, 
Shedding on all benediction and balm — 

Tempests, cloud-sundering, 

Dreadfully thundering, 
Lift with all winds the powerful Psalm ! 

Bluest Ethereal ! 

Bright Immaterial ! 
Th' infinite Heavens encompassing all ! 

Cope of Lnmensitv I 

Sound with intensity 
Praises to God from your echoing wall ! 



CHRISTMAS 



THE REDEEMER. 
SOUL-LIBERTY. 
ADVENT HYMN. 



CHRISTMAS 



L 



ADVE NT H YM N. 

IFT up your heads, ye gates ! swing wide, 
Ye dazzling portals of the morn ! 

Forth let the Filial Godhead ride 
On wings of cherubim upborne ! 

Nor dare, thou flushed and flattered East [ 
The Sun of Righteousness to stay, 

Now that the long dark night has ceased, 
And souls are hungry for the day. 

On mountain tops bright heralds stand, 
With beautiful and shining feet. 

And publish over sea and land 

The welcome tidings glad and sweet : 

He comes ! The sky is all on fire : 
We see the bannered pomp unfurled. 

The advancing Splendor rushing higher 
To flood and overflow the world ! 



114 CHRISTMAS. 



Y 



THE REDEEMER. 

E fair and fadeless Stars, that hither turn 
All your converging and sweet wondering eyes 
From every part of the surrounding heavens, 
Holding compassionate and patient watch, 
Pure witnesses of all the births of Time 
From man's apostasy until this hour! — 
Now join to celebrate with the redeemed, 
The Saviour's advent to this far off Earth, 
Who came that He might bring the lost one back, 
Back from the hungry, fiery jaws of Hell, 
To shine once more in your bright neighborhood. 
Unchanged amid all changes, lo ! ye smile 
And send serene and loving glances down, 
(For hate ye cannot) owning still the bonds 
Of sympathy and sisterhood, despite 
Her blurred and altered phase and depth of shame. 

Ye deem it ill becomes you to contemn 
Wliat the Creator cares for. Ye are pure, 



CHRISTMAS. IIS 

But not so pure as He, yet His delights 

Have from the first been with the sons of men, 

Whose utter ruin left unmeasured scope, 

For a display of love, transcending all 

That highest Seraphim had ever thought. 

Yea ! Earth from all eternity He willed 

Should be the honored theatre whereon 

The Godhead should surmount the loftiest scale 

Of possibilities of grace. Ye dim 

And twinkling orbs ! ye, that are sunk most far 

In the deep ether, must have heard the fame 

Of that stupendous miracle — a Child 

Of Virgin born, His name Emmanuel, 

In whom the fullness of the Godhead dwelt, 

Whose birth to shepherds first announced, what time 

They watched their flocks upon Judea's hills 

Beneath your smiling and rejoicing beams. 

O, stole ye not a glimpse of the sweet Babe, 

As in the manger lying, underneath 

The Mother's doting and adoring eye. 

And stooped j'ourselves to do Him homage ? For 

The might, that formed and whirls you on your way. 

Was there pent up within that Infant Form ; 

That jjuny arm sustained the Universe ; 



Il6 CHRISTMAS. 

That tongue, which then was mute, had power to change 
Th' abiding laws of Nature and of Fate. 

Years rolled away : meanwhile, this Wondrous Child 
Had grown to manhood's stature — marred His form, 
His visage ploughed with grief. Much had He toiled 
And suffered. Him full often had ye seen 
Through tedious hours of night, engaged in prayer. 
Alone, in mountain solitudes. Sometimes, 
An awful majesty broke forth through His 
Accustomed meekness. Now His voice was heard, 
Chiding the storm-tossed sea and raging winds 
That gave obsequious heed ; and now, the dead 
Waking, as from slight slumber, at a word ; 
And now, forgiving sin, as highest proof, 
Maugre that guise of weakness, He was God. 

Remember ye Gethsemane ? We said. 
Of mortal sorrow He had drunk full cup ; 
But there ye saw Him, prostrate, crying out, 
" Father, if possible, let this cup pass !" 
His grief, that waxed intenser day by day. 
Had reached its acme. Gracious God I a sweat 
Of blood, wrung out by pressure of His agony 



CH R f S T M A S. 117 

"Dipped Him all o'er," a dreadful baptism, but 
For whose accomplishment He yet had longed. 
He stood the Atlas of a sinking world. 
By guilt so ponderous grown, that, even He 
Who holds Creation up, one moment seemed 
To stagger 'neath it and to fail of strength. 

Ye saw another scene, at midday too. 
A preternatural darkness wrapt the land 
For three hours space, and ye looked down 
On Calvary, a hill hard by Jerusalem. 
O sight of horror ! O atrocious deed ! 
There hung th' incarnate God, besmeared 
With blood and spittle, haggard, most forlorn, 
Writhing in helpless agony. Shocked and aghast, 
Withdrew ye not your shining in that hour. 
The darkest from eternity, and yet 
The brightest, hour most signal, big with fate, 
The fate of countless millions? Blood there spilt 
Quenched everlasting fires ! 'Twas proof of love 
Amazing Heaven and Earth and even Hell. 

Though ye're all lustrous and immaculate. 
The brightest were, I trow, ne'er honored thus. 
Ye have, perhaps, angelic visitants, but when 



n8 CHRISTMAS. 

Did God descend among you, and become 
As one of your own people ; not a guest. 
But denizen and fellow through long years? 
The fruit of so mysterious and matcliless grace, 
Is not yet fully rea[)ed. Hereafter, ye 
Shall see the renovated earth shine forth 
Fair as the fairest and as blest as erst. 

Christmas, 1851. 



SOUL-LIBERTY. 

OMOST illustrious of the days of time ! 
Day full of joy and benison to earth, 
When Thou wast born, sweet Babe of Bethlehem ! 
With dazzling pomp descending, angels sung 
Good will and peace to men, to God due praise, 
Who on the errand of salvation sent 
Thee, Son Beloved ! of plural Unity 
Essential part, made flesh that mad'st all worlds. 

Ay, well and gloriously didst Thou achieve 
Thy god-like mission both by life and death. 
Light broke upon the nations ; at Thy word 



CHRISTMAS. 119 

Roused from the sleep of ages. Truths long lost, 

Man's immortality and higher life, 

The unity and fatherhood of God, 

The splendid verities of Christitm Faith, 

Ran swiftly and were glorified in every land. 

Thy Universal Empire, whose sole law 

Is Love, rose silently, and without violence 

Freeing from old oppression. Ne'er till then 

Did man know aught of Freedom, or could know. 

The sensual and depraved are slaves perforce. 

The free of soul, the pure, the sanctified. 

Alone are free, the Freemen of the Lord, — 

True King of Christendom, whose gracious sway 

None shares, nor Prince, nor Priest subordinate 

Or prime. Whate'er opposes and itself exalts 

Against His sole supremacy is known 

As Antichrist, the man of sin, abhorred 

And blasphemous, sometime to be revealed. 

Mysterious sufferance ! revealed He was 
Long since ev'n as foretold ; and has been therf 
Ev'n in (jod's Temple seen to sit as God, 
Usurping Godhead. In Thy seat, O Christ ! 
Sporting omnipotent tyranny of yore. 
By threat and curse and boundless bloodshed, still 



JO CHRISTMAS. 

Urging submission to his iron sway. 

Beneath heaven's broad and blessed canopy 

No place was found, no little spot among 

Th' Alpine solitudes, where safely one 

Might offer spiritual worship, and enjoy 

Th' inalienable privileges of grace. 

The Book of Life was contraband. Direct, 

God might not speak to man, nor man to God. 

No sweet immunity, no sacred right 

In all the Charter of Salvation made secure, 

Escaped his ban and interdict. He oped 

Or " shut the gates of mercy on mankind." 

There at the Board of Life assumed to sit 

To dole its heavenly nourishment for pay. 

The Fountain of Salvation was fenced round 

That henceforth none might draw or drink, except 

As ministered by priestly hands. God could 

Not save, apart from ghostly benison, 

And shrift, and endless round of mummery, 

And stamp of " By permission " of the priest. 

'Twas monstrous heresy to say : " On us. 

The laity, doubtless God bestowed, not souls 

Alone, but modicum of sense withal. 

To save them from perdition." Fires would blaze, 



CHRISTMAS. 121 

Swords gleam, and racks creak horribly, to wreak 
The dire offence tlius done lo clerical 
Prerogativvr, where lay sole power to judge. 

We sketch the features of a barbarous age ; 
But live remote, in times of boasted light. 
In favored land, where all may fearless read 
And know ourselves the blessed Word of Life, 
That tells, the very air and sunlight are, 
If possible, less free than is Heaven's grace ; 
And he's a daring pragmatist, at best, 
Be he pope, priest, plain presbyter, or plain 
Preacher, that qualifies its freeness — free 
And flowing chaste and clear immediately 
Through Faith, with holy renovating power. 

" One is your Master," saith our Head, " even Christ, 
And there results to you equality 
Of brotherhood. Humility is rank ; 
The least is greatest and the greatest least." 
May God forfend, that blood should stream afresh. 
Ere ends the strife for self-aggrandizement, 
Among the subjects of the Prince of Peace. 

Christmas, 1852. 



N EW YEAR 



ETERNITY. 

THE FUTURE LIFE. 

LIFE'S MYSTERIES. 

ACCOUNTABILITY. 

THE FLIGHT OF PEGASUS. 

ALL HAIL ! 



NEW YEAR 



B 



ETERNITY. 

EHOLD, how speed we toward Eternity f 
Cut from our waning Life, another Year 
Has of the hungry and insatiate Past 
Been swallowed up, leaving a poor remainder. 
The hastening and inevitable fates 
Draw us toward everlasting issues, dread 
And infinite, that lie beyond the grave, 
The grave, where sets the orb of being, sets 
To rise, ascend, and culminate above 
Eternity's horizon evermore. 

Ye thoughtless ones, attend ! A voice proclaims,. 
"Repent ! prepare ! Eternity's at hand." 
Behold, it comes ! it comes ! comes unobserved ' 
In deepest silence comes ! steals unawares ! 
Eternity ! How know we but we stand 
On the precipitous and crumbling verge 
Of Time e'en now, PZternity below ? 



126 NEW YEAR. 

O reck ye not, ye votaries of vice ! 
Ye worldlings ! that Eternity draws nigh, 
And ye like atoms shall be soon engulphed 
In its unfathomable and awful depths ? 
Each step ye take along Futurity's 
Dark path, ye take in blind uncertainty. 
I see your lifted foot project e'en now 
Sheer o'er the brink of final destiny. 
Back ! back ! ye tread on vacancy. But, ah \ 
Ye cannot back. Into the Bottomless 
Ye topple headlong, and are seen no more. 

Some doubt, I know, their Immortality. 
They might with equal reason doubt they are. 
This shaking, foul, Serbonian bog, 
Low lying, bordering th' Infernal Pool, 
Is surely not man's highest. Wherefore else 
Above him are the everlasting heavens, 
Inviting him to soar? Why has he wings 
If not to use them ? Purposeless and vain 
Are half his powers, himself a grand mistake, 
If the Creator meant his end should be 
Swine-like to sink, and perish in the mire. 
All unbelief is deep self-ignorance. 
If not immortal, man is nature's lie ; 



NEW YEAR. 127 

And the great pillars of Creation rest 

On nothing but deceit. Audacious thought ! 

That God doth mock His creatures ; doth implant 

Unutterable falsehood in man's heart, 

In merest wantonness, to make Him sport 

With his fond fallacies and guileful dreams 

Of an Hereafter ne'er to be enjoyed ! 

Why Memory ? or Conscience why ? 

Or why, if then their functions are to cease, 

Are they most active in the final hour ? 

If nature's weak, not so are they ; they seem 

Instead, such fearful energy is theirs. 

As if aroused from life-long slumber now 

To act their plenary and proper part. 

Of all the dread affronts to Virtue done. 

That none forgets, no more than this forgives. 

Ten thousand fictions that endure in health. 
Touched by the grim reality of death. 
Dissolve and disappear. Wrenched from the grasp 
All sublunary good, and standing there 
On the dim borders of the world, the Soul 
Trembling revolves each terrible Perhaps ! 
Perhaps there is a God, and death, perhaps, 



128 NEW YEAR. 

Is not the end of being, nor the end 

Of suffering either. This capacity 

Of pain, now wrung with mortal agonies, 

What if th' inseparable property 

Of something that survives ? What if the Mind, 

That late, deliriously at work, transformed 

Each innocent and familiar thing around. 

Into some hideous, foul, accursed shape, 

Peopled the vacant air with mocking fiends, 

And made the pleasant chamber seem a hell, 

Unhinged by Sin, incurably insane. 

Should in Eternity be evermore 

The tortured victim of sick fancies, still 

Vexed with infernal nightmares and fierce dreams. 

Delirious tossings on a fiery sea 

Of howling, horrible imaginings — 

Infernalized within, the outward hell 

Be but the shadowy scene and correspondence. 

The picture and projection of itself, 

Predominating presence everywhere, 

Whose potent spells malignant. Paradise 

Would make appear, the region of the dammed ? 

O ye, who make your Bible a Perhaps, 

See borrowed here a leaf from vour own book, 



NEW YEAR. 129 

Hinting a horror, infinite and deep, 
As that abyss of fear, you say, we feign. 

Though God is good, because man has the law 
Of Duty broke, that binds and evermore 
Preserves the total universe from wreck ; 
With malice 'gainst his Maker struck a blow 
That to Creation's farthest depths sent down 
A thrill of boundless horror and dismay — 
What wonder, Fear, in various doubtful shape, 
Now like some hell-hound breathing hard behind 
In hot pursuit ; a rushing presence now ; 
A noise of something, passing swiftly by, 
Or hovering o'er with outstretched dragon wings, 
Casting a chill portentous shadow down — 
Afflicts the trembling, self-accusing heart ! 

High faculties involve high destinies. 
For weal or woe. If exercised aright, 
Harmoniously, and as God ordains. 
They shall exalt to heights of happiness 
And honor, far above man's utmost thought. 
But, ah ! if some infernal frenzy seize 
The sold, or foulest demon of misrule 
Obtain adrrtission once and lord it there, 
9 



I30 NEW YEAR. 

If Reason, Conscience be cast down, despoiled 

Of their prerogatives, and anarchy 

And ceaseless strife intestine rage, and fierce 

Embroilment with high Fleaven ensue, 

Then farewell heaven, and all hell's horrors, hail ! 

Rebound shall follow each rebellious act 

Aimed at th' Omnipotent ; for how can he, 

However vast his energies, expect to cope 

Witli one like God? His giant faculties 

Shall then be mighty only to infiict 

Self-torment. Then shall Memory unfold 

To Conscience her terrific scroll, o'erwrit 

With the sure record of the Soul's misdeeds 

Traced there indelibly, and hold it up 

And close it never, though the soul well nigh 

Invert itself in the intensity 

Of its self-loathing ; though it shrivel up 

Beneath the withering of its own contempt ; 

Though rent and racked with agonies of Remorse ; 

Though all aghast from momentary dread 

Of new outpourings of Jehovah's wrath ; 

It yet in no wise may forget or blink 

Of all its countless crimes a single one. 

'Tis even so ! Those awful Opposites, 



N E W YEAR. 131 

Supremest Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, 
Spanned by the infinites of Hope and Fear, 
Lie near and neighboring to each soul of man — 
Each broiaght to it so near by guilt or grace, 
One knows not which is nearest, this or that. 

O might there enter the dull ears of men, 
A cry of wailing and of warning shrieked 
From the ab3'ss, a fierce and terrible cry, 
To fright them back from ruin ; make them cease 
Soul suicide, and everlasting death ! 
But, ah ! would this, even this avail to turn 
Them from their folly? Heard they not, ere now, 
Celestial voices testify and tell. 
And yet would not believe ? The most, not all. 
O ye repentant ones ! raise your wet eyes, 
See Christ's recovering arm stretched ev^er forth, 
The same extended once on Calvary, 
And nailed for your redemption. Trust it now ! 
In all the universe there's naught so free. 
As the free pardon of all gracious Heaven. 

New YE.A.R, 1841. 



132 NEW YEAR. 



THE FUTURE LIFE. 

ON the strong pinions of the fleeting Years, 
We all are borne unceasingly aloft, 
Straight toward the azure of Eternity. 
That infinite and all-embracing Cope 
Of Mystery, we soon shall penetrate, 
And be as gods in knowledge. We who now 
Are ignorance and feebleness, blind moles 
That burrow in the ground, are destined yet 
To know as we are known. Each gordian knot 
And awful problem of our being solved, 
Dwelling in light forever. Can it be? 
Ay, even so ! Bear witness. Earth and Heaven ! 
If myriads such as we are have not passed, 
Upon the Bosom of the Year just flown. 
Up thence into the Infinite ; though now 
No more incarnate ; for that flesh and blood 
Cannot inherit it, nor yet abide 
So awful an amazement, as there smites 
The soul, amid the uncovered mysteries 
Of that illimitable and dread domain. 



NEW YEAR. 133 

If one ere now, as ancient Seer, while yet 
A habitant of clay, has caught a brief 
Apocalyptic glimpse of Things Unseen ; 
Or seen, perchance, a ghostly visitant, 
At dead of night when deep sleep falls on men, 
A mortal horror seized him, and anon 
"A cold shuddering dew dipped him all o'er,"* 
His hair stood up, and all his joints were loosed, 
Or he at once fell prostrate like one dead. 
Such gelid influence to freeze the blood, 
Dry up the sap and sources of his strength, 
And palsy all the instruments of life. 
Have objects supernatural. How then. 
Unless of fleshly garment all unclothed, 
And clothed with other and adapted garb. 
Like that which spirits wear, could he behold. 
With unaccustomed eyes, the naked face 
Of the immediate Godhead, and yet live ! 
Not Seraphim or Cherubim dare look. 
Familiarly, with bold and open gaze, 
Nor but with timid awe and shaded brow, 
Upward to that high throne on which He sits, 
So blinding is the brightness, piercing, pure. 

* Comus, line S03. — Miltoyi. 



134 NEW YEAR. 

Should one of earthly mould, with mortal weakness girt, 

Intrude in that Dread Presence, how at once 

Would he, both by the lightning and the light, 

Be all transfixed and panged in every part, 

All scorched and blasted and consumed away ! 

But disembodied Spirits at this hour 

Are passing thence, made able to endure 

The infinite amazement. O my Soul ! 

What shuts tliee out tliis moment from tlie sight, 

Except this crumbling wall of fragile flesh. 

Now weakly tottering, on which Time beats 

Unceasingly, exposed besides to all 

The thousand shocks of mortal accident? 

This hindrance broken down, ah ! then, thou too 

Shalt meet those piercing and perusing eyes. 

That judge thee while they search thee ; hear that voice, 

Which shakes the universe ; that spake 

The all-creating fiat, breaking first 

The everlasting silence ; that pronounced. 

With stern and dreadful emphasis of wrath, 

Then first provoked, the Malison and Doom, 

That down to just damnation sank for a3'e 

The apostate sons of heaven, of which the sound 

Through all the infernal caverns echoes still. 



NEW YEAR. 135 

What tremblings and what swoonings of dismay, 
Await us in tliat solemn hour, that opes 
The portals of Eternity, and o'er 
Its mystic threshold bears and shuts us in — 
The hour of birth into another life ! 
Sooner or later it must come to all. 
But who so dastard or so grovelling, 
As e'er to wish 'twere less inevitable, 
As not to hail it though so full of dread ? 
Immortal Thought — uncrowded and unchecked 
By the insulting and encroaching banks 
Of scooped material channels, that sometime 
Did shore and shallow it — shall then burst forth, 
O'erflowing and redundant as a sea ; 
And in its liquid, clear, unfathomed depths 
Shall be reflection and solution seen 
Of endless Mysteries of the Universe ; 
All former truth and knowledge, tliough as great 
As Newton boasted, being swallowed up 
And lost, as rain-drops in the ocean. Stars 
And Suns innumerable — not as here 
By distance dimmed and dwindled, but full-orbed 
And unimaginably bright — above its vast 
Immeasurable horizon, io I sluUl rise 



136 NEW YEAR. 

And set no more forever. From the face 
Of all things, shall be lifted and rolled off 
The wide concealing darkness, laying bare 
The mighty hand of causal Deity, 
Beneath the deep foundations of the world 
Swift touching all the springs of harmony. 
In vain search wearied, groping evermore 
In guessing ignorance, or with blind plunge 
Leaping despairingly we know not where, 
How blessed, how divine, to rest tired feet 
On the Eternal Rock of Certainty ! 

O, most exalted fate of man ! the Soul, 
That with invincible instinct yearned to know, 
Thus privileged, within the Azure Veil, 
Into the Unprofaned and Holy Place 
And secret Sanctuary of the Sky 
To look — yea ! unforbidden pass the high 
Once inaccessible threshold, to the Shrined, 
Adorable Wonder and the All in All ; 
To climb the Heaven of Heavens, the Height of Heights, 
And from supremest altitudes, with keen 
And multipresent faculty behold 
Creation all in prospect, seen at once ; 



N E IV YEA R. 137 

Or, with accompanying Archangel, soar 

On sociable swift wing, so swift scarce sight 

Can follow or thought overtake, far thence 

To the dim frontiers and extremest bounds 

Of starred immensity, along the bright 

And blazing pathway of unnumbered worlds, 

Rolling forever in their mighty orbs — 

Waving glad pinions to th' eternal chime 

Of sphere-born harmonies ; now lost 

In the effulgence of some central Sun, 

Dispenser of wide day to planets round, 

As briefly stooping holy feet to bathe 

In luminous fountains full as at the first. 

By the fierce heat and radiance unconsumed ; — 

Emerging sparkling thence, limbs dripping light. 

And trailing splendors through the Ethereal Deep, 

With unstayed wing, till on the shore arrived 

Of Chaos, void and without form and dark, 

They stand spectators of creative acts, 

Hear sounding through th' abyss once more 

Th* omnific word : " Let Be ! " to unborn worlds. 

The immaterial Spirit, fed with strength 
Unfiiiling, knows no weariness, and needs 



JO N E IV YEA R . 

Nor sleep nor rest, but buoyant, fresli, 
Throughout the lapse of unimaginable years, 
Without one void oblivious moment, works. 
And as one day is as a thousand years 
To Him who fills Eternity, yet finds 
In ever}^ moment room enough to be, 
Ev'n so to man — in that immortal realm, 
With his accelerated powers of thought, 
(Since Time is being, measured by the whirl 
Of consciousness as well as circling spheres. 
By varying states of mind made swift or slow) 
In the expanded limits of an hour. 
May ages of existence seem to roll, 
As marvellously prefigured oft in dreams. 

In that so multiplied Eternity, 
Among such scenes, and fellowships, and acts 
Of godlike power and glory, and events 
Without a name or parallel on earth, 
O what a Histor\' ! O what a Life ! 
Must thence arise to our immortal selves — 
Amid all changes consciously the same. 
Our cradled ignorance remembered still 
To swell the wonder of the distance passed, 



X E IP' YEAR. 139 

And make us humbler, as we higher rise, 
Godward, in grand interminable ascent 
Of knowledge, goodness, purity, and love. 

New Year, 1842. 



LIFE'S MYSTERIES. 

OTIME ! in thy far flight among the spheres, 
That, on soft axles turning, still repeat 
The ceaseless round of years and ages, say ! 
Is, everywhere as here, Death by thy side 
To reap perpetual harvests — with clean sweep 
Gathering the growing corn of sentient life ? 
How many white and waving fields, all wet 
With weeping dews, have ye not garnered here 
In the long lapse of by-gone centuries, — 
So that of former generations none remain ! 
What boundless carnage that shall never cease ! 
What piles of victims heaped up ever)' hour ! 
How earth's o'erspread with ashes of llie slain ! 

How populous is Hades ! Dreadful Death, 
Familiar Mystery, what art thou ? — thou, 



I40 NEW YEAR. 

That mak'st the brightest forms of loveliness 
Hideous, and quell'st and renderest void at once 
All strength in man, all consciousness and sense — 
Supplanting Life, that other mystery, with thine. 
Or what is Death or what is Life none knoweth, none. 

Lo ! I, an atom 'midst Infinitude, 
Poised trembling on the moment's shifting point, 
Amid circumfluent Eternity, 
Bewildered look around for my lost being. 
With stunned and staggered faculties I muse 
And moot my own existence. Can it be ? 
'Tis surely all a dream ; but then to dream, 
Implies I am : I therefore cannot doubt. 
To my own consciousness, I stand revealed, 
A waking and irrefutable Reality. 
I am, but was not — a mere thing of yesterday, 
That some Power, all power above, evoked 
From nothing, and said Be ! and straight I was. 

I seek to know myself. To me is given. 
Passions, Susceptibilities and Powers : 
I feel, think, reason, judge, remember, know ; 
Can love, admire, worship ; have sympathy 
And fellowship with God Himself; 



NEW YEAH. 141 

Can speak on themes a Gabriel meditates, 
And learn e'en here the Science of the Skies. 
Whence have I these, or where ? How wonderful. 
That boundless Thought has bodily organs, caged 
In narrowest space, a maniple of brain ! 
This ebbless flux and tide of consciousness. 
Whence comes it, whither goes it, who can tell ? 

All, all is Mystery. 'Tis everywhere — 
Within me and without me and around ; 
Here underlying, their o'er-canopying. 
Earth and th' encircling Heavens ; all this fair show 
And apparition of the Universe — 
This sensible material Display, 
Finite projection of the Infinite, 
The visible vestments of th' invisible God, 
Wherewith He for a time enwraps Himself, 
To be put off and folded when He will, 
Ungarmented and naked then to stand 
Fully revealed to dazed and wondering eyes. 

O, what are other Mysteries, compared with Him 
Who is their Centre, Sum and Source ! 
To whom all Time's an "Everlasting Now" 
All space a " Universal Hkrk." He fills, 



142 NEW YEAR. 

Pervades, encircles all. He's ever near. 

Go where I will, I go not from His presence. 

His most august companionship I share, 

When I go out, come in, lie down, rise up. 

O, how can I, who cease not to trangress, 

Abide such awful scrutiny ; this dread 

Proximity ; this most mysterious. 

Actual environment of the Infinite — 

Of Him the Jealous, Just, and Pure, who winks 

At no iniquity ; the very thought 

Of wrong, abhors and execrates — how much, 

Is then to be evinced, when, Avith a frown 

That darkens Heaven, He speaks the Words of Doom! 

Thou Universal Presence ! present to help, 
Infirm and faint, by Sin's Circcean draught 
Intoxicate, how unassisted can I tread 
The Narrow Path — steep, arduous, beetling, close 
On Ruin's brink, where one erroneous step 
May be forever fatal— I who reel 
And stumble at broad noon : who dream awake 
And clutch at shadows : dupe of thousand arts, 
Of infinite illusions, scattered thick 
In all my pathway, by th' Arch Foe of man ! 



NEW YEAR. 143 

O hear my whispered prayer for strength, 
For guidance ! Lay Thy finger on my soul, 
And regulate its springs of action ! Touch 
My eyes and ears, that this unreal scene 
Of devilish enchantment may have power 
To cheat no more ! Endue with Fortitude ! 
Confirm my Faith ! and let my Love and Zeal 
Burn like a furnace, while I urge m}'' feet 
Reluctant, up the steep and stubborn Hill 
Of Difficulty, over which the Path 
Of Life e'er lies ; and still pursue my way, 
Whate'er betides or threatens. — fearing Thee, 
Fear nothing else — strong in Thy strength, 
Until I reach the end. The end is near. 

New Year, 1843. 



144 NEW YEAR. 



ACCOUNTABILITY. 

A BROAD in the keen air amid the blaze 
-^-^ Of starlight, come I forth to meditate 
The Closing Year. How beautiful is Night, 
Seen through a clear and frosty atmosphere ! 
This bright apocalypse of myriad worlds, 
By her made manifest, unseen by day. 
How it affiliates and lifts to God ! 
Buoyant, afloat in an invisible element. 
Voyaging the Inane, is this brave Universe, 
Swept on for aye before th' Almighty's breath. 
All share the mighty movement. Even now. 
Returning from a distant cruise around the Sun, 
The Earth ploughs swiftly the Ethereal Deep, 
Bearing me onward to my fate eterne. 

O God ! the privilege of Being Thou dost rate 
Too high to waste it without recompense. 
It is on terms of price and penalty 
This Reasoning Life's bestowed, held stringently 
To just conditions of felicity. 



NEW YEAR. 145 

Ah, me ! have I not snapt each ligature 

Of hope, ten thousand, thousand times destroyed. 

Around me everywhere, shut out by this 

Opaque environment of flesh, is not 

Th' Invisible Mystery, the Spirit World, 

Thine awful Habitation ! Touched by Death 

Without transition instantly I'm there. 

What if, through that rent veil of flesh, 

Should burst the dreadful vision of Thy frown ! 

In naught does man so vehemently avouch 
His independent self-hood as in Sin. 
Each petty unit of the race throws down 
Bold challenge of defiance : sets himself 
With hostile fixed antagonism of will, 
Against the reasonable, most righteous will 
And fiat of the Almighty ; disregards 
The thunder and the terror of that voice 
Sounding from Sinai over all the earth ; 
And dares to every awful interdict 
And absolute, " Thou shalt not ! " to oppose 
Resistingly its resolute, " I will ! " 

Whence comes this weakness of divine decree ? 

This impotence of Heaven's omnipotence? 
10 



146 N E IV YEAR. 

Omnipotence of human impotence ? 

In the Material Universe, God speaks, 

And it is done : Commands, and it stands fast. 

There's neither let, nor possibility of let, 

To His immediate and resistless will. 

Lo ! His unburdened arm, outstretched in space, 

Upholds the vastness, and directs the course 

Of an amazing multitude of worlds ; 

Nor would it be oppressed, though thereon hung 

A multiplication of that multitude. 

Outnumbering number and engulfing thought. 

Tempest, and Thunder, and the Earthquake's might 

Rocking the glo'oe, or up through earth's split sides 

Heaving the vast, deep, underlying rocks, 

Are but th' escapings of a boundless Force, 

Pent up in Nature's prison-house and chained. 

But which set loose from all controlling Law, 

With dread explosive violence and jar. 

Would dislocate the spheres, and straightway rend 

Atom from atom bringing chaos back. 

Yoked to th' eternal mandate, this same Force 

And sum of Forces, meekly ministrant. 

Majestically calm, God's pleasure works ; 

Binds, balances, and harmonizes all'; 



NEW YEAR. 147 

Wheeline^ each particle into its place, 

And marshaling sublimest aggregates, 

Till, like to a well-ordered army, moves 

Th' obedient Whole, led by the Lord of Hosts. 

O wonderful to tell I that whereas lies 

Not one unmastered particle bej'ond 

This whirlwind sweep of all-embracing Power, 

Mysterious, ubiquitous, immense. 

No atom but subserves its proper end — 

Man, standing in the midst, because a Power 

Distinct, peculiar, spiritual, and free. 

Moved only as self-moved by force of will, 

Is able to resist and does resist, 

A potent rebel though a helpless worm. 

If Moral Freedom be not what it seems, 
A self-approving Conscience would convict 
Nature of perjury. Her loud protests. 
And proclamations of a wrath to come. 
Were proved a sham, a mockery, and a lie. 
Neither untruth, nor semblance of untruth 
Can emanate from God ; then, surely, He 
Has not built up His Moral Universe 
On juggling falsities and rottenness, 



J48 NEW YEAR. 

From corner-stone to top-stone, planned a cheat. 

If our own hearts condemn us, warpt. 

Purblind and partial, knowing but in part. 

And judging by a standard far too low, 

Th' Omniscient God is greater than our hearts, 

Formed them and fashioned them, and cannot be 

Forger of falsehood, author of deceit. 

That innate sense and certainty of guilt, 

Discovers and determines past a doubt, 

Despite all janglings of philosophy. 

And the vain teachings of mistaken creeds, 

Howe'er curtailed and crippled in his powers ; 

Man still retains th' essentials of a man ; 

Is still the uncaused cause of moral acts, 

Obedient to no impulse but free choice. 

Make search, and see, if anywhere you find 

In all the chambers of your consciousness, 

A single trace of true necessity ! 

If not found there, 'tis nowhere to be found. 

For that's the utmost goal of human quest. 

Thus far no farther ; none can go beyond 

Nature's finality and fenced extreme : 

Who would, swings off o'er utter emptiness. 

As well seek cause for natural effect 



NEW YEAR, 149 

Outside the limits of created things. 
Forsaking Nature's voiceful oracles, 
Sincere and trustful, and the Word of God, 
Go, question nothingness, and wait response 
From the dumb darkness of th' unechoing Void ! 

I feel myself responsible, and am. 
The vital and indubitable facts 
And affirmations of my consciousness, 
I reverently accept, and dare not doubt. 
I am not wiser, nor would wish to be, 
Than my Almighty Former — wiser means, 
The fatal folly of the first of fools, 
Who doubts the certainties of sense, 
That fire will burn his flesh, and poison kill ; 
That truth is truth, reality is real. 
He witnesses against me. God Himself 
Accuses and convinces me of sin. 
In tones of awful terror, Him I hear 
Denouncing endless banishment and death, 
For that I'm guilty and without excuse. 
If I could feel my sin was not my own, 
I might retort ; rejudge the Judge ; accuse 
Th' Accuser. Conscience were my Champion, 
Not my relentless Punisher, as now — 



15° NEW YEAR. 

Vulture of Vengeance, with hooked buried beak 
Tearing my vitals, giving no respite. 

How ravishing th' Evangel, that reveals 
Forgiveness ev'n to me, through penitence 
And humble trust in the atoning Vicarship 
Of Him, the penal Substitute, whose merit high 
O'ertops the infinite of human guilt. 
Whereby the chain fast rivetted by Fate 
Drops off, unbinding Cause and Consequence ! 

O, what a sterile soil is human hearts. 
Where scarce the seeds of Wisdom e'er take root ! 
The most will not believe, though Heaven protests, 
And by th' impossibility that God 
Should lie, they're urgently persuaded. E'en 
Thus hard to prove to fools their folly. Hell 
Is bottomless because Truth underlieth not ; 
But foolish builders still go on to build 
On base of vanity, and pile up lies. 

Ye devotees of lust ! 'twere well ye knew. 
Your cherished vices hide a mortal sting — 
What time the incubation is complete, 
Ye hatch fell scorpions, nestling in your flesh, 
And darting anguish throughout all your bones, 



NEW YEAR. 151 

Akin to that of the undying worm. 

And ye, who with a mad idolatry 

Of wealth bow down to it alone ! indulge 

A pregnant secret whispered in your ear — 

God is not Mammon, therefore take ye heed, 

His name I'm told is Jealousy in hell. 

Ye politicians, politic for self ! who seek, 

Through dirtiest by-paths, place and power ; 

Who in the Nation's august sanctuary 

Dare sit, and with profanest arrogance 

Make laws, yourselves contemptuous of all law ; 

Whose only Article of Faith, the clear 

Indubitable expedience of wrong ; 

Who abrogate the laws of Heaven, enact 

Injustice, and from statute book expunge 

Each damnatory clause, in tenderness 

To those feloniously unfortunate, 

Tremble ! if true, as I suspect, there's still 

An older legislation unrepealed. 

Whose penal feature's quite beyond your reach. 

We, this whole people, have sinned grievously. 
A fierce and sordid Selfishness has seized 
And barred each avenue, and made our hearts 



152 NEW YEAR. 

A savage fortress, meant to be the home 
Of all the graceful charities of life. 
I have most sad forebodings, O my Country ? 
Favored, elect of God, and set supreme ! 
Methinks, I see fast gathering even now, 
A dark, o'ershadowing cloud of wrath, 
Nursing pernicious thunderbolts of fire 
To scathe the Nation scornful of His choice. 
Let us be penitent, and with strong prayer 
Assault His Throne of Mercy day and night ! 



THE FLIGHT OF PEGASUS.* 

AHORSE ! a horse !" King Richard cried, 
" My kingdom for a horse ! " — and died. 
The royal hunchback bid full high, 
But who could death e'er bribe, or buy? 

* The orij^inal title to the following trifle, was: " The Carrier Carried: or, The 
Flight of Pegasus, a Poem, dedicated to their Republican Highnesses, the generous 
Patrons of the Newark Daily Advertiser, by Robin Goodfellow, Poet Laureate, 
etc., Kalendse Januarii, mdcccliii." The author is aware that Carrier Addresses 
do not rank high as literature ; and but for its supposed historic interest he would 
not think of introducing here so trivial a performance. It being a resume of im- 
portant events when everything was fresh, this circumstance may be allowed 
perhaps, to weigh against its lack of dignity. The historian, Macaulay, did not 
disdain to profit by popular ballads and such like melodious trifles (migce caiwra-), 
considering that what was contemporary was more likely to reflect the true spirit 
of the time, than statelier compositions written later. 



NEW YEAR. 153 

Your humble Carrier last night, 
Wishing to try an upward flight, 
Felt such unutterable need, 
And so he cried "A steed ! a steed !" 
What time his eyes began to roll 
Full of fine frenzy and of soul ; 
Intent the highest heaven to climb 
Of bold invention and of rhyme. 
The Carrier, all ought to know it. 
Is the Republic's Laureate Poet, 
And should not therefore always plod, 
With soul ne'er lifted 'bove the sod. 

He wished, we said, last night, a horse, 
A true-winged Pegasus, of course ; 
And lo ! down through the sky there came, 
Flashing and swift as lightning flame. 
What he so ardently desired, 
One with poetic instinct fired ; 
A steed that drew immortal breath. 
One who ne'er knew, nor can know, death ; 
Who many a rider had o'erhurled 
The flaming boundaries of the world ; 
Who once Bellerophon did throw. 



154 JV E IV YEAN. 

On the Aleian fields below ; 

The very same old Homer rode ; 

And who, more lately, Shakespeare strode ; 

And Milton — -most sublime of soul, 

Now here, now rapt beyond the pole — 

Though he, 'tis true, did sometimes choose 

Urania for his holier Muse, 

Whose flight's above the towering 

Of even strong Pegasean wing , 

Uplifting him to regions where 

The poet drew empyreal air. 

He was a fine ethereal creature, 
Most admirable in shape and feature, 
But very dreadful, and no wonder. 
With eyes of lightning, neck of thunder. 
He shook his mane, he snorted, raved — 
But when was Yankee ever scared ? 
He at his heart may feel a flutter. 
But scarcely likes the fact to utter. 
Your Poet Laureate won't deny 
He felt at first a little shy. 
But having put his hand to plough 
He thought it shame to falter now. 



NEW YEAR. 155 

' Once on your back, my clear, I count 
You'll not me easily dismount ; 
Without ado, or fiddle-faddle 
I'll jump at once into the saddle." 
No sooner said than done — the deed, 
Did not displease the noble steed ; 
Though by the act somewhat astounded, 
He laughed 'till all the hills resounded. 
Its very impudence, it seemed, 
Or recommended or redeemed 
The daring want of ceremony 
In treating him as common pony. 
Quite lucky this, else his next feat 
Had been a tumble from his seat ; 
He found it easy, true, to win it, 
But could have kept it not a minute, 
Had not the Courser been content 
To bide awhile his management. 

They now were ready for the start. 
So, upward from the ground they dart. 
And sweeping close to First Church tower, 
Your bold equestrian marked the hour. 
He saw, the moon then shining bright, 



156 NEW YEAR. 

'Twas near the witching time of night ; 
So asked — '* Before ten minutes run 
Can we be standing in the sun ?" 
The born of Neptune snorted, "Yes ! 
In ten or five, or even less." 
"Well ! seeing then there is no hurry, 
We'll take it easy and not worry ; 
Or if you please o'er earth will hover 
To see what here we can discover ; 
And lest we still arrive too soon, 
We'll touch a moment at the moon." 
It was agreed to. Looking down 
There lay outstretched his much-loved town. 
With all its thriving industries, 
And church-spires pointing to the skies. 
Dear Newark ! on from year to year, 
Still urge your prosperous career, 
Fulfill your destiny and duty, 
And grow in virtue, wealth, and beauty. 

Immediately away they went, 
Across this mighty Continent. 
At Washington, the Seat of Laws, 
They for an instant made a pause. 



NEW YEAR. 157 

The tidings of the late election, 
Had manifestly reached that section. 
Against the irruption of the Vandals, 
Whigs — staff in hand, and shod with sandals — 
Stood ready, without further fuss, 
To make a sudden exodus 
From office, while that they had breath. 
Thereby to escape being Pierce'd to death.* 
• Alas ! alas ! the people's folly — 
'Tis very, very melancholy. 

Having no faith in filibuster,! 
Nor yet in silly noise and bluster ; 
Esteeming Messieurs Brag and Bully, 
Consummate rowdies, that would sully 
The reputation of the nation ; 
That obviously in moderation 
Sense, dignity, and merit, lies. 
Not in low, base vulgarities ; 
Remembering what great Webster said, 
Lamented Webster lately dead, 

* Franklin Pierce was elected President, November, 1852, to succeed Millard 
Fillmore, whose term of office expired March 4, 1853. 

+ Alludinfj to the projects of the filibusters under Lopez, for the invasion of 
Cuba, promptly thwarted by President Fillmore. 



15^ NEW YEAR. 

* But being dead yet speaketh ' " We 
Live in the Nineteenth Century 
Of the most blessed Christian Era" 
(Always remembering, never weary) ; 
Believing most enormous guilt 
Must appertain to blood now spilt 
In needless wars — which nations wage 
From lust of conquest, pride, or rage, 
Hell-prompted, met in dreadful duel. 
Remorseless, senseless, fierce, and cruel, 
For wholesale murder, meant to cease, 
Under Thy reign, O Prince of Peace ! — 
Knowing 'tis righteousness exalts ; 
'Tis Heaven gives safety from assaults ; 
That sin's a hissing and reproach. 
As heaven-taught ancients somewhere broach ; 
That lust is sin, in embryo, 
To be brought forth in future woe ; 
That selfish greed nor lawless lust, 
Not what is covetable, but just. 
Becomes a Christian Government — 
The Carrier to the President 
Pays tribute, loyal and sincere, 
For that his skirts from blood are clear. 



N E W YEA R. 159 

While God and conscience are his rock, 
Let those who will, revile and mock. 

" Up ! up ! away ! " Their course they hold 
Now westward to the land of gold. 
Where ships were loading with " the root " 
Of which "all evil" is the fruit. 
Then on o'er the Pacific Ocean 
They urge their way with rapid motion. 
Fast sailing, prows turned toward Japan, 
They spied the Fleet American ^'' 
Sent out of late, and which, it seems. 
Has caused John Bull unquiet dreams. 
But he should be more charitable ; 
Suspicions are insufferable. 
U. S. merely means to open schools. 
By which these boors may learn the rules 
Of polite manners and good breeding, 
A needful, wise, and kind proceeding. 
Of which all nations are to share 
The benefit ; sure this is fair. 

At China, where they made short call, 

♦Commodore Perry's expcdi;ion, which suilcd in the autumn of 1852, and which 
resulted in a favorable treaty with that country. 



i6o NEW YEAR. 

Vast crowds were climbing o'er the wall^ 

Content no longer with their fate, 

But o'er the sea must emigrate. 

Poor, vain disciples of Confucius ! 

Gold's e'en to you fruit sweet and luscious. 

From BuRMAH, where still signs appeared 

Of hateful war, the travelers steered 

Yet westward ; and, en passant, saw 

Poor Hungary, passive 'neath the claw 

Of Beardom, by which term is meant 

The Russo-Austrian government. 

In far-famed classic Italy, 

They saw no Country that was free 

Save fair Sardinia — more fair 

Because an honored friend lives there,* 

With one, who by his side there stood, 

A lovely type of womanhood, 

(Our representatives at Court) — 

Her seeing, Pegasus gave snort, 

In sign of joyful recognition. 

For that in many an expedition 

She riding, sideways, ladies' fashion, 

The frenzy of poetic passion 

* Hon. William B. Kinney (our resident minister) and his lady. 



NEW YEAR. l6l 

Urging, hiid shared his loftiest flight — 
His, and the Muse's favorite. 

Not daring longer there to linger, 
Still pointing westward with the finger, 
They over Alpine mountains soared. 
The tunnel through not yet being bored. 
And, looking down, saw la belle France, 
Threading the mazes of a dance. 
Bewildering, intricate, perplexed — 
What novelty would turn up next 
'Twere vain to guess. None more absurd 
Than Emperor Napoleon III,* 
Is hardly possible ; but then, 
A riddle and a mystery are men. 

Thence turned they towards fair Albion's coast, 
Queen of the Ocean, and her boast ! 
Britannia seemed in sables draped. 
From head to foot completely craped : 
For the great Duke of Wellington,! 
Who many a victor}' had won 
On many a hard-fought battle field, 

♦This title was tjiven to Louis Napoleon by a plebistitum, Dec, 1852, one year 
after the coup d'etat. 
+ Died September 14, 1852. 

I I 



^62 jve^f year. 

Was forced at last to Death to yield. 
For that her Great Men also fail, 
Well may Columbia join the wail. 
O, sad and sorrowful the day, 
When lost to her was Henry Clay ! * 
When silence sealed for aye the tongue. 
On which enraptured millions hung! 
Nor less to be deplored the time. 
When Webstkk, lofty and sublime, f 
Whose Atlantean shoulders bore 
The w^eight of mighty cares of yore, 
Fell, crashing, headlong, and was found 
A mighty ruin on the ground I 
As falls the monarch of the wood, 
Or mass}^ tower that long has stood ! 
Columbia felt her own unnerved. 
When his right arm no longer served. 

Here, too, were cargoes all of gold, 
So vast, 'twas wondrous to behold. 
All from Australia, just dug, 
'Twill soon become, 'tis feared, a drug ; 
Unless they fix thereon a stopper, 
A guinea won't be worth a copper. 

* Henry Clay died June 29, 1852. 

+ Daniel Webster died October 24, 1852. 



NEW YEAR. 163 

Here Kossuth, living privately, 
Hoping 'gainst hope, for Hungary, 
Had ceased to be cause of dissension, 
By urging schemes of intervention. 
" Far less by violence and might, 
Than by the power of Truth and Right ; 
By force of the devouring sword, 
Than by the Spirit of the Lord, 
Making .thee virtuous as free, 
My much loved Land beyond the sea ! 
Canst thou assist to break the chain. 
On struggling Nations fixed again. 
Example hath a cjuiet might. 
Against which tyrants vainly fight. 
Unseen, but present everywhere. 
As is the universal air." 
Your tourist thus apostrophized, 
And then prepared to scale the skies. 

Obliging Pegasus, by dint 
Of a slight patting, took the hint ; 
So, up they soared, and, straightway, smack 
They both were in the Zodiac. 

Though bold, he scarcely thought 'twould answer, 
To draw too near your Mister Cancer ; 



164 NEW YEAR. 

Felt shy of Mister Scorpio ; 

In royal Leo feared a foe ; 

Miss Virgo doubtless had her charms 

But did not draw him to her arms : 

Those monsters seen in Almanac, 

Were there all scattered 'long their track ; 

But, shying out and hurrying on. 

One minute more they reached the Sun. 

Right opposite was, as of old. 

The gnomon, awful to behold, 

Pointing to twelve upon the dial : 

When, suddenly, not harp, nor viol, 

Organ, nor other instrument, 

E'er to such harmony gave vent, 

What time the Years began to chime 

Upon the mystic Clock of Time. 

From all the Spheres sweet music rang, 

The Morning Stars together sang. 

The Sons of God, Heaven's doors ajar, 

Shouting for joy, were heard from far. 

Down dropping where the planets dance, 
The animal began to prance ; 
Both feet and wings beat rhythmical 
At nice and measured interval. 



NEW YEAR. 165 

Thence passing, that old lunatic, 
The Man in th' Moon, they found quite sick. 
Being a man., the ladies, chiefly. 
Might like it, should the poet briefly 
Show of his character each phase ; 
His habits, humors, whims and ways ; 
Whether he's marriageable or married, 
Whether his courtships have miscarried — 
Which seems not likely, since 'tis known 
The sex here all his influence own. 
Making them love-sick, full of sighs 
And sentimental ecstasies. 
Women are born inquisitive, 
And it becomes men to forgive. 
And gratify, whene'er they can. 
This thirst to know concerning man ; 
Therefore, it is with pride and pleasure 
The poet does it in his measure. 

The Gentleman aforesaid then 
Has known the bliss of married men ; 
Long since, before the time of Adam, 
Was joined in wedlock unto Madam 
Luna, of chastity a pattern, 
A tidy housewife and no slattern. 



X66 NEW YEAR. 

She loves her spouse, no doubt, sincerely, 

And he, no doubt, loves her as dearly ; 

Indeed, it is a fact notorious, 

He is excessively uxorious ; 

Was never known to be morose, 

When she was sick or lachrymose ; 

Whate'er the whim that chanced to seize her, 

His only object was to please her ; 

He turned himself all ways to suit. 

From principle shunned all dispute ; 

So, had she known what 'twas she wanted, 

For that thing, would have toiled and panted 

Her gallant husband and adorer, 

Until he had secured it for her. 

Sometimes, preposterously, of nights. 

She'd loudly talk of Woman's Rights, 

Saying, "My sphere's a hemisphere." 
"Granted, I know it is, my dear ! 

But hemisphere is only half, 

Is half enough ?" said he, and laughed. 
"If not content with that, you shall 

Have more — three-fourths, seven-eighths, or all." 

Always polite and keeping cool. 

He yields to her the right to rule. 



NEW YEAR. 167 

It now may not appear so strange, 

Why Moon's another name for change ; 

For she, fantastical and fickle, 

Turns it sometimes into a sickle ; 

Now makes it horned, then makes it gibbous. 

While playing peep-a-boo with Phoebus ; 

And when at full, all bright and pale, 

She seems the ocean, man tlie whale. 

Some daughters of that planet yonder 
Have grown, no doubt, and 'tis no wonder. 
By marking Luna, somewhat lunar, 
And so intend soon, if not sooner, 
T' assert their rights, and make them equal. 
One and the same, that, in the sequel, 
Having and being all in common. 
One may not tell a man from woman. 
The old belief, 'tis their conviction. 
Of male and female, is a fiction ; 
Therefore, the jealous little witches. 
Grudge his monopoly of breeches. 
Their envy, eating like a canker, 
'Tis most for what is his they hanker ; 
Being his, is why they think they're needed : 
No matter, that it is conceded, 



l68 N E W YEAR. 

Of th'e two halves she is the better, 

And that he's evermore her debtor ; 

Nor, w^hat in others is held penal, 

In them is treated as quite venial ; 

That she may shoot the barbed arrow^. 

That pierces deep and drinks the marrow ; 

May break the peace, and stab with daggers, 

And smite the brain till reason staggers — 

By witcheries of looks and eyes 

Do these and such like felonies — 

And yet be never once indicted. 

Nor 'fore a Magistrate be cited. 

And yet forsooth they're not contented. 

It truly must be they're demented. 

While thus he mused and moralized, 

A gleam of Day-break, him surprised. 

And now brought back to Earth again. 

Dismounting, he let go the rein. 

Away at once the Winged One flew. 

Scarce giving time to bid adieu. 

All safe and sound from his Journey audacious, 
Behold ! to his Patrons, right royal and gracious, 
This glad New Year morn comes the leal-hearted 

Poet— 



NEW YEAR. 169 

For that he's loyal, he thinks they should Icnovv it — 
A little embarrassed, with heart in a flutter, 
To wish them much joy, and his Vivats, to utter : 
May you all live long, and then at death's portal 
Pass at once into life and glory immortal ! 
'Tis the part of a Christian never to waver, 
But pocket an insult as well as a favor. 
The Laureate knowing, without wishing to flatter, 
His liege lords would offer naught but the latter, 
For anything else goes quite unprovided, 
Though, of course, the amount he would leave un- 
decided : 
In the blest school of meekness, though not an apt 

scholar. 
He's at home in the fractional parts of a dollar. 
'Tis more blessed to give, and that bliss superior, 
He's willing to yield, and accept the inferior; 
And while he abhors all things that are hateful, 
He abhors the mean soul that cannot be grateful. 



lyo NEW YEAR 



ALL HAIL! 

THE joyful Muse keeps vigils all the night, 
Waiting the advent of the New-born Year, 
And on the radiant forehead of the time 
Imprints her kiss of welcome. Hail ! All hail ! 
Offspring and heir of old Eternity, 
Assume thy sceptre and begin to reign ! 
O thou august Successor of the Years ! 
Th' uncomputed periods of the Past, 
With all their power and glory, are thine own — 
Thy patrimony, thine inheritance, thy right. 
On thee devolve the sum and adding up 
Of the unbounded and unwasted wealth 
Of all preceding Ages. All is thine, 
O last and richest of the sovereign Years ! 
All pre-existence culminates in thee, 
O regnant Present ! O supremest Now ! 
The tribute of unnumbered centuries 
Fills thy exchequer, and augments thy state. 
Appropriate thy birth-right ! Crowned with stars, 



N E IV YEAR 171 

In jeweled pomp such as befits thee, sit 

And execute the high behests of God, 

For this is thy prerogative and place, 

Advancing to complete accomplishment 

That which concerns the universal weal 

And His eternal glory. Hasten thou 

Omnipotent fulfillments ! Bring to pass 

Predestinated triumphs ! Gather spoil, 

And drag Abaddon at thy chariot wheels, 

In sight of shouting millions ! Raise up Truth 

Where she has fallen, and establish Right ! 

Upturn from their foundations each stronghold 

And forted residence of hoary Wrong ! 

Cast down old Tyrannies ! break every )^oke ! 

And, with iconoclastic fury, smite 

The immemorial idolatries 

And horrid superstitions of dark lands, 

Which for a Jesus hiive some Juggernaut ! 

Mosque and Pagoda, level to the ground ! 

Or else, when purged of their abominations, make 

Them Temples to Jehov^di's praise, 

Thronged with converted worshippers. 

Rejoicing in the liberty of Christ ! 

Alas ! how long, sweet Pity asks, how long 



172 NEW YEAR. 

Shall the dear promise of that time delay ? 

Lo ! Jumna and the Ganges now run blood, * 

All through their course, a thousand miles, perhaps 

To where they empty, by a hundred mouths, 

Into the shuddering bosom of the sea. 

As made incarnadine with human gore, 

Poured from the veins of murdered innocence 

At Meerut, Delhi, most of all, Cawnpore, 

Where Nena Sahib, — whilom friend, sleek, soft, 

Accomplished in the learning of the West — 

Unmasked, and called up hell, with him to hold 

High holiday on earth, and celebrate 

Infernal orgies — aiders in his work 

Of treachery and cruelty and lust. 

Not Niobe's deep woe immortalized in stone ; 

* The year 1857 was a memorable one. The great Sepoy Revolt in India fi.xed the 
attention of the whole civilized world. On May 14, a formidable rising took place at 
Meerut. The Europeans were massacred ; and the mutineers marched to Delhi, 
where a second butchery took place. The restoration of the Mogul dynasty was 
proclaimed. There were simultaneous risings in the northwest provinces. Benares 
on the Ganges was in revolt on June 4, and on the next day at the military 
station at Cawnpore, several thousand Sepoys revolted and placed themselves 
under the command of Nena Sahib, rajah of Bittoor. The town contained at the 
time 900 Europeans, of whom two-thirds were women, children, and other non- 
combatants. After a siege which lasted till June 27, they surrendered on promise 
of a safe passage to Allahabad. Instead of this, the men were treacherously 
massacred ; and the women and children kept alive until July 15, when the Nena, 
hearing of General Havelock's rapid advance toward Cawnpore, caused the whole 
number, after horrible outrages, to be put to death, and had their bodies thrown 
into a well. One of the results of the mutiny (not finally quelled until 1859) was 
the transfer of the government of India from the East India Company to the direct 
authority of the Imperial Crown by Act of Parliament, passed August 2, 1858. 



NEW YEAR. 173 

Not Rachel's inconsolable distress 
For slaughtered babes in Jewry, fully matched 
The anguish of those mothers, who theirs saw, 
Mangled ere murdered, tortured, piecemeal torn. 
The tale is left half told, for who would wish, 
Lifting the veil upon those scenes of shame, 
Again to shock the chaste and modest light 
That witnessed once their horrors ? 

Visit not, 
Not now, most just but gracious Lord ! not now. 
The iniquities of the fathers on the sons, 
Nor yet mete retribution to their own misdeeds ! 
O banish not the stranger ! Let oppression cease, 
But still, let Christian England keep the gates 
Of golden Ind, that so may enter in, 
The shod and girded Heralds of the Cross, 
Whose feet, when seen afar upon the hills. 
Hastening on errands of good will and peace, 
Are beautiful as sunrise. Let this be 
Th' acceptable and favored Year of Grace I 
Now gird the sword upon Thy thigh ! Ride forth, 
Serene and conquering Prince ! Let Trutli be sharp 
In hearts of Pagan, Mussulman, and Jew, 
Slaying inveterate enmities, that so. 



174 NEW YEAR. 

Thy Kingdom may come gloriously in all the Earth ! 

Be ruled, ye representatives of Christian Lands, 

By the mild maxims of the Faith ye teach ! 

If blood cries from the ground, and must have blood, 

Temper the fierceness of a just revenge 

Toward the deluded multitude. Look home, 

And weigh it well, what, if ye too were judged ! 

Statesmen of England ! put away for shame 
Your timorous time-serving. O, for once. 
Endanger something for the cause of Christ 
As well as for dominion ! Subject for just scorn. 
Peer of tlie realm or not, is he, who dared 
So far dishonor his high station, as, 
Misjudging causes and misplacing blame, 
Vilely to slander Christian zeal and love, 
As root of all the mischief — saying naught 
Of new exasperations of old griefs, 
Deep, rankling wounds for centuries unhealed, 
Inflicted by injustice and misrule. 

O, there are men with hemiplegic souls — 
One half their manhood paralyzed and dead. 
And that the better half, their moral self — 
Fleshly, corrupt, and devilish in their aims, 



NEW YEAR. ^75 

Who worship naught but Mammon and themselves, 

But not unwilHng to pay outward court 

To Boodh, or Brahma, or to any god. 

For what they deem sufficient recompense. 

Abhor the cringing baseness of such men. 

Who counsel cowardly compliances. 

And Judas-like betrayals of their Lord, 

Honors to Vishnu at th' expense of Christ ! 

Dwellers among the heathen, holding rule ! 

Be frankly Christian, both in fact and name, 

Magnanimously intent to make thciii so. 

By the sure methods of unselfish love, 

And tenderness of Calvary's appeal ! 

Thus exorcise the demon that you dread. 

O, for a Statesman, worthy of the name. 
In other lands, or this. Premier or President, 
Or Minister or Maker of the laws — 
I'd walk a thousand miles to kiss his hand — 
Who in the faith of an Eternal God, 
And an imalterable, just Law, that rules the world, 
Steers by the pole-star of unmoving Truth, 
And not the flitting meteor of the hour : 
Who with unbending rectitude of will. 



176 NEW YEAR. 

Follows unquestioning where Duty leads : 

Who with a circumspect and careful step 

Pursues inevitably the Path of Right, 

Like one who treads the perilous and craggy edge 

Of some high precipice beetling o'er the sea, 

And shudders, lest his deviating foot 

Should unsupported press the vacant air, 

And the abyss receive him : who, Achilles-like, 

Detests a Lie e'en as the gates of hell. 

All tortuous policies and tricks of State, 

And ne'er is tempted to forsake the Right, 

To stumble in the dark of chance expediencies : 

Who doubts not, if one sows him dragon's teeth, 

He'll have a brood of dragons, or armed men, 

Strifes, conflicts, wars in Kansas, or elsewhere. 

Chief Magistrate of these United States !* 

* James Buchanan was inaugurated President March 4, 1857. The repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise Act of 1820, which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°, 
30' N., had made Kansas the scene of bitter strife ever since 1854, when, with 
Nebraska, it was organized as a territory. A large majority of the settlers, con- 
sisting of emigrants from the Free States, were anti-slavery ; but armed bands 
from Missouri had, year after year, taken possession of the polls, and prevented 
the election of any but pro-slavery candidates, cither to the Territorial Legislature, 
or to Congress. A Convention assembled at Topeka, October 23, 1855, promulgated 
a Constitution for the State of Kansas in which slavery was prohibited. On Jan- 
uary 15, 1856, an election was held under this for State officers and a Legislature. 
This met July 4, and was forcibly dispersed by U. S. troops under Col. Sumner. 
It met again Jan. 6, 1857, and organized ne.\t day. The U. S. Marshal made 
several arrests, which leaving both houses without a quorum, they adjourned till 



NEW YEAR. 177 

Thou art a man of peace, and wishest peace, 

But peace comes not by merely wishing it. 

Canst thou by wishing make sour, sweet ? False, true ? 

Or make in any wise that fact, which is not fact? 

O, mock us not, proclaiming falsely peace. 

When that there is no peace, but war instead ! 

Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a hook ? 

Or, being thirsty, drink the Ocean dry ? 

Though ten times President, thou canst not do it. 

What canst thou do ? Thou canst do right. Do that, 

And thou may'st safely leave the rest to Heaven. 

Deal with polygamous Utah with firm hand I 
And that most precious rascal, Brigham Young, 
Chief scoundrel of that seat of scoundreldom, 
Whose vulgar and disgusting nudities 
Have outraged decency by far too long ! 
Think of the atrocity of many wives 
Thou who hast none ! Mete out to his debaucheries 



June. In the mean time. Several bloody conflicts had taken place between the Free 
State and pro-slavery parties, — the. latter strengthened as usual by armed forces 
from Missouri. Such was the situation of affairs upon Buchanan's accession to 
office. In his Inaugural Address, he stated the mode in which the difticuUies in 
Kansas were to be settled. It unfortunately consisted, not in a courageous up- 
holding of the right, but in a series of weak compliances with all the unjust de- 
mands of the pro-slavery party, including the recognition and approval of the Le- 
compton Constitution, framed in the interests of slavery, with wliat results wc all 
know. A rebellion in Utah came to a head this year. 

12 



f78 NE W YEAR. 

And scandals foul, according to the sense 
Of thy indignant and chaste bachelorship, 
And so wipe out this blot of Christendom ! 
Sage and sagacious Servant of the State ! 
Doubtless thou hast thy crotchets, who has not ? 
What bachelor, or father without boys, 
But has some favorite theory of home-rule ? 
And so, what bankrupt in his own affairs, 
But is profound in mysteries of Finance, 
And on the Currency is quite at home. 
Knowing the whys and wherefores of all things ? 
Spare us just now the trial of new schemes. 
That which you broach seems radical enough ; 
Is revolution rather than reform ; 
A total pulling down to build anew. 
Your hobby-horse, great Sir, rides somewhat hard. 
The architecture of our humble homes, 
If not our beau-ideal of a house. 
We still prefer to living out of doors. 
At this inclement season of the year. 
The times are hard, but yet they might be worse : 
For fear of drowning shall we hang ourselves? 
The man who tried to live on nothing, died — 
Which proves experiments are not all safe. 



NEW YEAR. 179 

"Sweet are the uses of Adversity." 
The lesson is an old one, old as man. 
No year but in its circuit brings some grief 
To every heart and household. In the last, 
God frowned — and, straightway, out of heaven fell 

blight. 
Withering the hopes of men. Lo ! first, the Deep, 
Opening its ample jaws, a noble Ship''' 
Swallowed, conveying homeward precious freight, 
Men and vast treasures from the land of gold. 
O gallant Herndon, generous to the end ! 
Women and children, saved by thee from death, 
(Heroic hundreds perishing around) 
Well may they weep thee, and we'll weep thee too. 
Next, snapt that mystic cable, f ah ! how sad, 
Which grappling distant shores, is destined yet 
To bring them close, renewing ancient bonds 
Of blood and brotherhood. When that shall be, 
The last remains of national dislike. 



* The Steamer Central America, William Lewis Herndon, Commander, on its 
way from Aspinwall to New York, having on board 474 passengers and a crew of 
105, and about $2,odo,ood, during a violent gale, sprung a leak on the evening of 
September 12, 1857. Only 150 persons on board were saved, including the women 
and children. The gallant Commander, more careful of the lives of others than 
his own, was seen standing upon the wheel-house at the time of her sinking. 

t Referring to the unsuccessful attempt, made in August, 1857, to lay the 
Atlantic Cable, which broke when 300 miles had been paid out. 



l8o NEW YEAR. 

At the first flash, God please, shall perish, smit 

By silent thunder. Compass it, O Year ! 

Then, were commercial earthquakes, shaking down 

Fabrics of merchant princes, heaps on heaps, 

A roaring ruin heard beyond the sea, 

Begetting sudden sympathetic shocks, 

Whence came reverberating crash and answering roar. 

By what uncertain tenure do men hold 

Riches, and all the good things of this life ! 

Wrecked fortunes and wrecked hopes strew all the 

ground. 
Faint hearts, look upward ! see, where breaks the cloud, 
How calm, how beautiful, how safe is heaven ! 

Indulge the poet in a private grief. 
Ah me ! ah me ! that fond and faithful heart — 
In whose maternal furrows first took root 
My being, growing up to conscious life ; 
Whose animating impulse first awoke 
This throbbing mystery within my breast — 
Is cold, is cold, it beats no more for me, 
But moulders in the churchyard since three months. 
The brow of beauty, in its dewy prime. 
Was ne'er to me so ravishing as hers. 
Albeit age and care had wrinkled it. 



NEW YEAR. 

For Love had stamped his angel impress there. 
Assist me, gracious Heaven, for I would be 
Better and holier for her dear sake. 
For 'tis a grateful thought I have sometimes, 
That she lives through me, and the fruit I bear 
Is to the honor of the parent tree. 

Withhold not thanks, O living men ! to-day, 
For all God's mercies. Now the birds are dumb, 
There's none to praise, if man be silent. Sing, 
Lift up your voices, make the valleys ring. 
And wake the slumbering echoes of the hills, 
For praise is comely ! Dedicate the hours 
To pious offices and friendly words 
Of mutual gratulation ! Life is brief. 
Time rolls a golden stream to men awake, 
But not to them who sleep ! Th' occasion seize ! 
The present, while we speak, becomes the past — 
Swift as the lightning, gone, ere we can say. 
It lightens ! Stamp the momentary Now ! 
Postpone no purpose ; dangerous is delay ! 
Do good unto your friend before you die !* 
Slight not the call of two Eternities, 
That summon you to give this Year to God ! 

New Year, 1S58. 

* Ecclesiasticus xiv : 13. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 



FOURTH OF JULY— 1851. 

MOUNT VERNON VISITED. 

ARM OF THE LORD, AWAKE ! 

OUR COUNTRY'S BANNER. 

OUR CAUSE. 

HYMN FOR THE NATIONAL FAST. 

TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 

FOREFATHERS' DAY. 

CENTENNIAL ANTHEM. 

THE LAND OF THE FREE. 

MY NATIVE LAND. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 



FOURTH OF JULY, 1831. 

WHAT time our patriot fathers spoke 
The oath on Freedom's altar sworn, 
To wear no more the tyrant's yoke. 
This mighty Nation then was born. 

The thunder of that lofty vow, 

To distant ages sounding loud, 
Has shaken thrones, is shaking now, 

And shall yet shake, till all are bowed. 

The Flag of Freedom, then unfurled. 
Was hailed by millions from afar — 

The Conquering Standard of the World, 
Sublime alike in peace and war ! 

It proudly floats on every sea, 
Is honored now on every shore. 

It whispers to th' oppressed, Be free ! 
And kindles hopes unknown before. 



1 86 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

God of our fathers ! since Thy hands, 
In benediction stretched above, 

Have us advanced above all Lands, 
Knit us in amity and love ! 

Let not this brotherhood of States, 
By vital bonds made firmly one. 

Be ever rent by hostile fates. 
Or fratricidal rage undone ! 

But emulous of things that make 
The high example more complete. 

Teach Nations how their chains to break, 
And soar sublimely to Thy feet! 



MOUNT VERNON VISITED.* 

I SING to him, the good, the brave. 
Whose mighty dust in glory sleeps, 
Where broad Potomac swells and sweeps. 
And mourns and murmurs past his grave. 

*The visit to Mount Vernon followed the hearing of Charles Sumner's Speech 
in the Senate Chamber on "The Crime against Kansas," which provoked the 
assault of Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina, May 22, 1856. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 187 

O spot most hallowed ! Shrine most blest ! 
Where every pebble, wild flower, blade 
Of common grass, is sacred made : 

The Mecca of the Christian West. 

Here unforgetful pilgrim feet, 

From all the earth, shall come and crowd ; 

And half mankind with foreheads bowed, 
Moist tributes pay and homage meet. 

What though no mausoleum towers. 

In marble grandeur, grace of art, 

His monument's the human heart. 
Immortal as this soul of ours. 

It is the ashes, not the tomb 

Which sanctifies and makes august — 
This cannot save ignoble dust 

From its inevitable doom. 

Memorial of sculptured stone 

Is needed not ; no slab so rough 

As not to serve ; it is enough, 
Bears it the name of Washington. 



1 88 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Lo ! solitude is social found — 

The stir of leaves and song of birds 
Are more than eloquence of words — 

In silence there's pathetic sound. 

The shade of him who erst wast seen, 
Treading, may be, at dusk or dawn, 
This wooded slope and upland lawn, 

With step majestic, look serene, 

Methinks, still hovers. On his brow 
Sits awful sadness. Wherefore this? 
It is no common cause, I wis — 

What evil threats my Country now? 

His countenance is pale, as when, 
Amid the strife of parting breath. 
The dolor and the dew of death, 

His spirit passed — and now, as then, 

A mystic horror shakes each leaf 

Of all the wood ; while Freedom speaks 
And fills the air with sobs and shrieks. 

As conscious of some awful grief. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 189 

O, thiit the men the people choose, 
Leaving the halls of fierce debate, 
Would liithcr come to meditate, 

And gather wisdom while they muse ! 

Musing beside heroic dust, 

Fondly revolve heroic deeds. 

Until it emulation breeds 
To be as lofty and as just I 

May 28, 1S56. 



ARM OF THE LORD, AWAKE!* 

ARM of the Lord, awake ! 
With dreadful fury, smite ! 
Let sudden ruin overtake 
The enemies of Right ! 

* It might seem, at first sight, that the imprecation of divine vengeance upon 
our enemies is contrary to the benign spirit of the Gospel ; and, undoubtedly, it 
can only be defended in cases when our enemies are tlie enemies of right, and 
just because they arc so. It then becomes a judicial function, regulated in its ex- 
ercise by a pure desire that God would interpose to vindicate truth and justice by a 
measured and righteous punishment ; but, preferably, by opening the eyes of mis- 
guided men to the criminal folly of their course, and disposing them to turn away 
from it. The command to hate our nearest kindred, and our own life also, is only 
an intense form of assertion of the supreme preference which is to be given to 



190 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Against th' insulting foe, 

The sword of vengeance draw, 

And make rebellious traitors know 
The majesty of Law ! 

As when fierce tempests strike 

The ocean, and it heaves. 
So, tossed with terror, make them like 

A wood of shaking leaves ! 

Let heavenly anger flame ! 

Let boundless scorn be hurled. 
To make them hide their heads for shame 

Before a hissing world ! 

By high examples taught, 

Help us to act as well ; 
Fight bravely as our fathers fought, 

Fall as our fathers fell ! 



right over everything else. In this way it is easy to explain Paul's " Anathema 
Maranatha," and the imprecatory Psalms of David. The above Hymn was written 
when the purpose of the enemies of the nation to destroy it could no longer be 
doubted. In the progress of the struggle, the horror felt at the amount of blood- 
shed on both sides, hardly left room for any other sentiment than the profoundest 
grief. 



. NATIONAL LYRICS. 191 

Or ere more blood be spilt, 

To men, by frenzy blind, 
Make manifest their horrid guilt. 

And give a better mind ! 
April 26, 1861. 



OUR COUNTRY'S BANNER. 

FLING out, fling out, with cheer and shout, 
To all the winds Our Country's Banner !- 
Be every bar, and every star. 

Displayed in full and glorious manner ! 
Blow, Zephyrs, blow, keep the dear ensign flying ! 
Blow, Zephyrs, sweetly mournful, sighing, sighing, 
sighing ! 

Lift up, lift high, far toward the sky, 

The symbol of a Nation's glory ! 
Let it delight the people's sight. 

From every window, every story ! 
Airs, rustling soft, here from all quarters hieing, 
What ails ye, that ye cease not, sighing, sighing, 
sighing ? 



192 NA TIONA L L YRICS. 

O'er shop and home, o'er tower and dome, 
See, how it wtives with graceful motion ! 

From castle wall, from mast-head tall, 
In every land, on every ocean ! 

What means it, grieving Gales, your soft wings plying, 

Ye weep so, whispering sorrow, sighing, sighing, 
sighing ? 

How fair ! how dread ! as seen o'erhead, 

High in the forefront of the battle, 
Right to defend, and make and end, 

'Mid fire and smoke, and roar, and rattle. 
Winds ! gaily flutter it, over all flying, 
Peace, smiling, bids you leave off sighing, sighing, 
sighing ! 

Aprh. 26, 1S61. 



OUR CAUSE 



THE Nation, that on rigiit is built. 
Shall stand secure and flourish long ; 
Not so the work of crime and guilt, 
The rotten fabric of the wronof. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 193 

That based on right can nothing liurt : 

The plottings of infernal fraud 
Can just as easily subvert 

The throne and government of God. 

What though against tlie Lord of Hosts, 

A third of Heaven did once rebel, 
And blasted tongues now make their boasts 

They concord broke and founded Hell I 

What though there are, O list ! O list ! 

Who lift up impious hands and pray, 
With malice, snatching at God's fist, 

To smite their brethren and to slay ? 

Will God regard, and lend His hand 

To fix th' oppressor's cruel chain, 
And drive out Freedom from the land .•' 

O, surel}', no ! the fear is vain. 

Advance your banners ! Make no pause ! 

Strike boldly ! See, your Country bleeds ! 
Ye heroes of a holy cause, 

Set music unto noble deeds ! 
13 



194 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Ye stand upon a moral height, 
The centre of all eyes to-day ; 

Be worthy of your sires in fight, 
And f^ing the fear of death away ! 

For should ye fail, O what a grief 
Would fill the channel of the years ! 

That Freedom's term was here so brief, 
To eyes unborn were theme for tears. 

But, no ! that were too deep a shame : 
I see a future opening vast, 

My Countr}', raised to higher fame, 
The arms of Heaven around her cast. 

September 27, 1861. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 195 



HYMN FOR THE NATIONAL FAST. 

LONG suffering and patient God ! 
Amid the war-cloud's sulphurous smoke, 
Discerning- Thine avenging rod, 
Thy powerful mercy we invoke ! 

The very earth with tears is wet, 

The skies are dropping crimson rain, 

And reddened floods run redder yet, 
And all the land is full of pain. 

O Lord, how long? Lo, in the dust 
A Nation worships Thee to-day ! 

Wilt Thou not hold Thy hand, or must 
Offended justice still have way? 

There is no peace in sin, we know. 

Our vices make eternal jar ; 
Dry up the sources of our woe. 

And end the causes of the War ! 



1^6 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Success doth crown the virtuous brave, 
Who fight for freedom and the laws ; 

From cowardice and baseness save, 
And make us worthy of our Cause ! 

We would not in the market sell 

Our birthright won by bloody strife, 

And, by a covenant with hell, 
Bargain away the Nation's life. 

Who saves his life, his life shall lose : 
By base desertion of the right, 

We cannot cheat eternal dues. 
And vilely be in Thy despite. 

O God ! to shed a brother's blood, 
And leave upon the hands no stain. 

Is only for the pure and good, 

And not the impious and profane. 

Who strikes for justice should be just : 
Teach us to strike, but not in hate ; 

And not because we would, but must. 
Thereby to make the action great ! 
April 30, 1863. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 197 



THE NATION SAVED. 

THE union of a thousand lyres 
Could not convey so sweet a sound, 
As vibrates now along the wires, 

Spreading melodious tidings round. 
Of triumph o'er Rebellion won, 

Of Treason tottering to its fall, 
And a new era now begun 

Of just and equal rights to all ; 
When all, that once did vex and mar 

Our Country's harmony, shall cease — 
A quadriennium of War, 

A long millennium of Peace — 
The Federation of these States 

Born to a new and holier birth. 
O'er burnt out fires and buried hates 

Standing the glory of the earth. 
Confirm, O God, these hopes of ours, 

The Nation stablish on its base ! 
Make it a pattern to the Powers, 

Beginning from this Year of Grace ! 

Palm Sunday, Apru. 9, 1865. 



198 NATIONAL LYRICS. 



TWO HUNDRED YEARS KGO* 

OUR fathers' God, we bless, 
We magnify and sing 
Th' abundant faithfulness, 
And mercy of our King 
To us, and them whose hands did sow 
These fields, Two Hundred Years Ago. 

O, fair the heritage 

They from the red man gained. 
Passing from age to age, 
The title all unstained : 
Good men and true they were, we know, 
Who lived Two Hundred Years Ago. 

This City — nobly planned, 

Adorned with park and shade — 
Their tasteful eye and hand 
The first foundations laid : 
Men fearing God they were, we know, 
Who built Two Hundred Years Ago. 

♦This Ode, prepared for the occasion, was sung to the tune of Lenox, at the Bi 
Centennial Celebration of the Settlement of Newark, N. J., May 17, 1866. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 199 

Though slumb'ring in the ground, 
Their spirit walks abroad, 
In schools and workshops found, 
And temples of our God : 
What they did phint, God made to grow. 
E'er since Two Hundred Years Ago. 

O River, smiling near ! 

And blue Sky, overhead ! 
The same from year to year, 
Ye do not mourn the dead : 
The dead, who left this scene of woe 
For Heaven, Two Hundred Years Ago. 

The memory of the Just 

Thrice blessed is, and sweet 
Is their neglected dust. 

We tread beneath our feet : * 
Unfilial feet to trample so 
Dust of Two Hundred Years Ago. 

Thrice has a righteous sword 

Been drawn in Freedom's Cause, 
Done battle for the Lord, 

♦The censure respects the desecration of the Old Burying Ground. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 

For equal rights and laws : 
Fraternal blood been made to flow, 
Ah ! since Two Hundred Years Ago. 

What wonders God has wrought ! 

Then let us warble forth 
His love beyond our thought, 
His majesty and worth : 
Exalt His power and grace below. 
Like those, Two Hundred Years Ago. 



FOREFATHERS' DAY.* 

THAT famous Egg of Plymouth Rock, 
Laid by a fowl of noble stock. 
Was hatched, about that time o'clock, 

They stepped ashore — 
The pastor and his little flock 
The Mayflower bore. 

* Read in response to the sentiment, " All Honor to the Eg-g that hatched the 
American Eagle," December 21, 1868, before the New England Society of New- 
ark, N. J., on the occasion of the Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers 
on Plymouth Rock, December 10, 1620, O. S. 



N A TI O NA L L Y R 1 CS. 

A sample egg, a pattern food, 
Un (Euf, that as a feast is good, 
A grand ^^i,'-^i,'--sample set : fain would 

Men imitate ; 
Get eagles' eggs, too, if they could, 

And incubate. 

For never yet was there a thing, 

So swift, so sure, so bold of wing, 

As that proud Bird whose praise I sing — 

Imperial sweep 
Of wide-spread pinions, hovering 

O'er land and deep. 

" Mewing her mighty youth," and wise, 
And kindling her undazzled eyes 
At the full midday beam, she flies 

From her high nest, 
O'er half the globe, mid changing skies, 

From East to West. 

The lagging wind she far outstrips. 

Sailing the air as sail the ships. 

O'er prairies broad and mountain tips. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Nor stays her flight, 

Till she in either Ocean dips 

Her wing of might. 

Where is the acorn, there's the tree : 
What is, gives birth to what's to be : 
The germ enfolds maturity, 

Life upward leaps : 
In that small speck, I dimly see, 

A Nation sleeps — • 

A bark, lo ! sailing o'er the foam. 

In which our grave Forefathers come. 

To find in western wilds a home — 

Good seed they bear : 
They sow the fat and virgin loam 

In faith and prayer. 

A handful of the heavenly grain, 
Scattered on all the winds with pain. 
Is nourished by the dew and rain : 

On every side 
It springs, and then is sown again 

And multiplied. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 203 

O fruitful is a holy thought ! 
The planted truth comes not to naught 
But with all blessedness is fraught, 
Makes glad the sod : 
Behold, what wonders it has wrought. 
The Truth of God ! 

The wilderness is full of bloom, 
And flowers send up a sweet perfume, 
And everywhere is seen, in room 

Of rock and brier. 
Tilled corn-fields, rich by labor's doom, 

And curse of fire. 

Thicket and brake no more conceal 
The ancient foes of human weal. 
The adder, striking at the heel 

With poisoned fang : 
Where Industry's unresting wheel, 

There war-whoop rang. 

And Freedom's sun shines clear and bright, 
Through clouds that erst obscured its light ; 
While, from red fields of stormy fight, 



204 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Triumphant comes, 
With banners streaming, lo ! the Right 
With beat of drums. 

Alas ! from Sin what sufferings flow ! 

We reap the misery we sow ; 

Make Nature's friendly powers our foe ; 

By false lights steer : 
The fatal cause of all our woe 

Is here, is here. 

So sunk in folly is the race, 
So sceptical, profane and base, 
Man flings the lie in nature's face. 

Calls evil, good : 
Loves death : on poison feeds, in place 

Of wholesome food. 

From the world's heart profoundly springs, 
How vice is venomous and stings, 
And none escapes the pain it brings : 

No human tact 
Can change the eternal truth of things, 

Make falsehood, fact. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 205 

Yet, everywhere, we victims meet, 

Of so preposterous a conceit. 

That they th' Omniscient God can cheat, 

And trick His laws : — 
Though Hell gapes hungry at their feet, 

They will not pause. 

The sons of license deem we prate, 

Unfolding horrors that await 

The souls of them who Wisdom hate, 

But, past a doubt, 
The grim, inexorable Fate 

Will find them out. 

Death is the price — read Nature's pages — 
And she, with all her wealth, engages 
To pay to Sin no other wages. 

The Universe 
Pledges it naught through all the ages 

Except its curse. 

Great are Thy judgments, and unsaid ! 
Lord ! at the nodding of Thy head. 
The pillared sky doth shake with dread ! 



2o6 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

When cried th' opprest 
Vainly to man, Thou cam'st instead 
In vengeance drest. 

" Right aiming thunderbolts " forth went, 
Flying, as from a bow well-bent, 
Out of the clouds, with angry rent 

Cleaving the dark. 
Flaming across a Continent, 

Straight to the mark — 

And crashing smote, and did not spare, 
Laying the earth's foundations bare. 
Toppling the shameless Falsehood there, 

And Slavery fell — 
A fire, consuming everywhere, 

Burned down to hell. 

And Folly blamed the Puritan, 
That God is God, and man is man ; 
That thistles grow not figs, nor can : 

The atheist 
Mumbled in vain his bitter ban. 

And shook his fist. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 207 

Condemned, as we have been, to hear 

The echo of a foolish sneer, 

From men and boys, for many a year, 

We would beseech. 
That they relieve th' afiflicted ear 

From further speech. 

Your Sires had failings not a few ; 
" New England Tragedies " were true ; 
But give the blessed Sun his due, 

Though he have spots ! 
How bright his beams beneath the blue. 

Despite his blots ! 

The trafficker in moral wares, 
Counts rubbish, and so cheaply spares 
The things for which a good man cares — 

'Tis liberal, wise : 
Patches the rents in earth's affairs 

By compromise : 

Profanely storms the heavenly towers ; 
But jealous, strict, supernal Powers 
Forbid we give what is not ours ; 



2o8 NA TIONAL LYRICS. 

The Godhead toss — • 
As one on beggars pennies showers — 
Not feeling loss. 

Slayer of dragons in liis day, 

St. George of England did not slay 

Old Prejudice, that lives alway : 

Truth oft has tried 
To pierce, in many a fierce affray. 

His scaly side. 

But Love can do what Truth cannot ; 
Heaped on the head her coals are hot ; 
Forget ye what can be forgot ! 

Weigh not each feather ! 
Willing your private griefs to blot. 

Shake hands together ! 

Ring, Christmas bells, ring merrily ! 
Ring, Christ us iiatiis Jiodie ! 
The Christ that is and is to be ! 

Ring, brotherhood ! 
Ring, peace ! ring, love ! ring, jubilee ! 

Ring, reign of good ! 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 



209 



CENTENNIAL ANTHEM. 

"T" ET us to Jehovah raise, 

-J-^ Glad and grateful songs of praise ! 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Let the people with one voice, 

In the Lord their God rejoice ! 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

He, across iintraversed seas, 

Guided first the Genoese r^ 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Here prepared a dwelling-place. 

For a freedom-loving race : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

* Columbus, born at Genoa, 1437. 
14 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Filled the land the red man trod 
With the worshippers of God : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

When Oppression forged the chain 
Nerved their hands to rend in twain 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Gave them courage to declare, 
What to do and what to dare : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Made them victors over wrong, 
In the battle with the strong : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

'Midst the terror of the fight, 
Kept them steadfast for the right : 
For His mercy standeth fast. 
And from age to age doth last. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Taught their Statesmen how to plan 
To conserve the Rights t)f Man : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Needful skill and wisdom lent 

To establish Government : 
For His mere}' standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Laid foundations, resting still 

On the granite of His will : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Wiped the scandal and the sin 

From the color of the skin : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Now o'er all from sea to sea, 
Floats the Banner of the Free : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 

Down the ages rings the blow, 
Struck, One Hundred Years Ago : 
For His mercy standeth fast. 
And from age to age doth last. 

Praise the Lord for freedom won. 
And the Gospel of His Son : 
For His mercy standeth fast, 
And from age to age doth last. 

Praise the Lord, His name adore 
All ye people, evermore ! 

For His mercy standeth fast. 
And from age to age doth last. 

July 4, 1876. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 213 



THE LAND OF THE FREE. 

We hail the return of the day of thy birth, 

Fair Columbia, washed by the waves of two Oceans ! 
Where men, from the farthest dominions of Earth, 
Rear altars to Freedom, and pay their devotions : 
Where our fathers in fight. 
Nobly strove for the Right, 
Struck down their fierce foemen or put them to flight, 
Through the long lapse of ages, that so there might be 
An asylum for all in the Land of the Free. 

Behold, from each zone under Heaven they come ! 

And haughtiest nations, that once far outshone thee, 
Now paled by thy lustre, lie prostrate and dumb. 
And render due homage, and no more disown thee. 
All the isles for thee wait. 
While that early and late, 
Not a wind ever blows but wafts hither rich freight, 
And the swift-sailing ships that bring over the sea 
Th' oppressed of all lands to the Land of the Free. 



214 NATIONAL LYRICS. 

As entranced I look down the long vista of years, 

And behold thine existence to ages extended, 
What a scene, O my Country, of wonder appears ! 

How kindling the prospect, surpassing and splendid \ 
Each lone mountain and glen, 
And waste wilderness then, 
I see covered with cities, and swarming with men. 
And miraculous Art working marvels for thee 
To lift higher thy greatness, thou Land of the Free ! 

From our borders expel all oppression and wrong, 

O Thou, who didst plant us and make us a Nation ! 
In the strength of Thine arm make us evermore strong; 
On our gates inscribe Praise, on our walls write Sal- 
vation ! 

May Thyself be our light. 
From Thy heavenly height. 
Ever flashing new splendors, and chasing our night, 
That united and happy we ever may be 
To the end of all time, still the Land of the Free ! 

July 4, 1853. 



NATIONAL LYRICS. 215 



MY NATIVE LAND. 

O BEAUTIFUL and grand, 
My own, my Native Land ! 
Of thee I boast ; 
Great Empire of the West, 
The dearest and tlie best, 
Made up of all the rest, 
I love thee most. 

Thou crown of all the Past, 
Time's noblest and the last. 

Supremely fair ! 
Brought up at Freedom's knee. 
Sweet Child of Liberty ! 
Of all, from sea to sea, 

Th' undoubted Heir. 

I honor thee, because 
Of just and equal laws, 
These make thee dear : 



2x6 NATIONAL LYRICS, 

Not for thy mines of gold, 
Not for thy wealth untold, 
Not that thy sons are bold, 
Do I revere. 

God of our fathers ! bless. 
Exalt in righteousness, 

This Land of ours ! 
Be Right our lofty aim. 
Our title and our claim 
To high and higher fame, 

Among the Powers ! 



POEMS OF PLACES 



NIAGARA. 

RETURN AFTER ABSENCE. 
A SABBATH AT NIAGARA. 
WINDERMERE, ENGLAND. 



POEMS OF PLACES, 



^' 



N I AG ARA. 

HILE I, tliine awful charms peruse, 
And meditate the rustic Muse — 

Wilt thou, Niagara, refuse 
My humble lay, 

Piped ere the time the morn her dews 
Hath snatched away ? 

I cannot "build the lofty rhyme" 
Of solemn cadence, keeping time 
With thy proud step and march sublime : 

A task so hard. 
Fits one of other age and clime, 

As Scio's bard. 

But not the music of the spheres, 
Alone delights th' Almighty's ears, 
For He well-pleased the meanest hears, 

The cricket even. 
That all night long the hearth-stone cheers 

With songs to Heaven. 



POEMS OF PLACES. 

Matchless in majesty and might, 
Type of the Heavenly Infinite ! 
Unspeakable ! that dost delight, 

And yet appall ; 
While deep to deep, and depth to height 

Incessant call ! 

Thou, like a racer, spurning curb, 
That snuffs the fatness of the herb, 
Or battle's fierce alarms perturb — 

Adown the steep. 
With curved neck, thunderous and superb, 

Dost fearless leap. 

Or like some bird, gay plumes adorning. 
Earth's highest summits proudly scorning, 
Seen soaring near the gates of morning, 

With flashing crest. 
Then stooping downward without warning 

His rainbow breast. 

What mean these constant earthquake shocks? 
Thy inland sea her gates unlocks. 
And hither drives her fleecy flocks 



POEMS OF PLACES. 221 

Of waves, thence hurled, 
Sheer o'er the precipice of rocks 
And shakes the world. 

A deep descent I reach at last. 
The rocky floor, on which is cast 
The watery column rising vast, 

Th' inflected River, 
Which standing there through all the Past, 

Shall stand forever. 

I feel how awful is this place, 
As, darkling, I my pathway trace 
Behind the flood at thy dread base. 

Baptized to thee, 
As was to Moses Israel's race, 

Beneath the sea. 

O God ! shut in by rock and sea. 
What fitter place to bow the knee, 
So cool and secret, near to Thee ! 

Hence, ye profane ! 
In Thy pavilion, here with me, 

Lord, converse deign I 



POEMS OF PLACES, 

As drenched with the resilient spray, 
I seek once more the open day, 
I pause and muse how all decay : 

Though this may seem, 
Type of Eternity, 'twill pass away, 

A murmurous dream. 

1847. 



RETURN AFTER ABSENCE. 

I TREAD once more my Native Plain ; 
I live my childhood o'er again ; 
I, who sometimes have mourned with tears, 
The unreturning flight of years, 
Feel the same breezes round me now. 
That fanned in infancy my brow ; 
And seeing naught that speaks of change, 
In wood, or field, or mountain range. 
Unconscious of the lapse of days, 
The past comes back, and witli me stays ; 
The intervening time forgot. 
The absent here, the present not. 



POEMS OF PLACES. 223 

How sweetly peaceful and how still ! 
A sabbath seems the air to fill ; 
No sound disturbs the sacred calm, 
Save whisper of a plaintive psalm 
Made by the leaves, as softly stirred 
By the west wind ; or song of bird ; 
Or chirp of insect in the grass ; 
Or buzz of bees as on they pass 
To sip the nectar of the flowers. 
Fair birth of vernal suns and showers : 
No faculty of soul or sense, 
But feels the blessed influence. 

Familiar scenes around me start, 
Familiar to my eyes and heart ; 
While every well-known object seems 
Tinged with the atmosphere of dreams ; 
By Memory's visionary ray — 
More potent than the light of day, 
Subtler than that of moon or star, 
Which merely show things as they are — 
I see o'er all, a glory cast, 
A halo borrowed from the past. 
Not lifeless forms in tree and stone, 
But power and passion not their own. 



224 POEMS OF PLACES. 

I once more, as in former time, 
The neighboring mountain's summit climb, 
And feel, as erst, the matchless charm 
Of woodland and of cultured farm ; 
Of fields of corn and grassy mead, 
Where pasturing herds in quiet feed ; 
Where hand of toil its task achieves 
To rear the hay-cock, bind the sheaves ; 
And ploughman whistles to the gale ; 
And milk-maid blithe sings o'er the pail ; 
And whip-poor-will, and house-dog's bark, 
Make glad the coming on of dark. 

Where smoke of village upward curls. 
There lived old playmates, boys and girls, 
And men who long have passed away, 
Whose homes remain, but, ah ! not they. 
Hard by yon humble church, are seen 
Their rounded graves with rank grass green. 
O death ! whose desolating tide 
Has snatched already from my side 
A father, sister, brother, wife. 
Long spare me her who gave me life. 
My mother, tenant of yon roof. 
The dearest, best, by every proof. 



POEMS OF PLACES. 225 

I wander by the shaded stream, 
Where I was wont to sit and dream 
Long silent hours, from morn till noon, 
Or till the rising of the moon. 
In waking visions lost, perchance. 
Of poetry and sweet romance ; 
Or, in devoutest ecstasy — ■ 
All conscious of the Deity, 
Most present in these solitudes — 
Thrilled with the murmur of the woods, 
As though it were His voice I heard, 
His breath that all the tree-tops stirred. 

If I have traveled o'er the sea. 
Been awed by its sublimity ; 
Seen monuments and cities old : 
And mountains soaring in the cold ; 
Dumb with adoring wonder, stood 
Beneath Niagara's thundering flood. 
And felt, how awful was the place 
Where Godhead met me face to face — 
I do not therefore you despise, 
Ye're no less lovely in my eyes. 
Scenes, first beheld ! still, in your face 
I find a glory and a grace. 
Scotch Plains, August, 1853. 
'5 



226 POEMS OF PLACES. 



A SABBATH AT NIAGARA. 

FOREVERMORE, from thee, Niagara! 
Religious Cataract ! Most Hoi)'' Fane ! 
A service and a symphony go up 
Into the ear of God. 'Tis Sabbath morn. 
My soul, refreshed and full of comfort, hears 
Thy welcome call to worship. All night long 
A murmur, like the memory of a sound. 
Has filled my sleep and made my dreams devout. 
It was the deep unintermittent roll 
Of thy eternal anthem, pealing still 
Upon the slumbering and muffled sense. 
Thence echoing in the soul's mysterious depths 
With soft reverberations. How the earth 
Trembles with hallelujahs, loud as break 
From banded Seraphim and Cherubim 
Singing before the Throne, while God vouchsafes 
Vision and audience to prostrate Heaven ! 
My soul, that else were mute, transported finds 
In you, O inarticulate Harmonies ! 
Expression for unutterable thoughts, 



POEMS OF PLACES. 227 

Surpassing the impertinence of words. 
For that the petty artifice of speech 
Cannot pronounce th' Unpronounceable, 
Nor meet the infinite demands of praise 
Before descending Godhead, lo ! she makes 
Of this immense significance of sound, 
Sublime appropriation, chanting it anew. 
As her " Te Deum," and sweet Hymn of Laud. 



O God ! I thank Thee, I can do no less. 
Since by Thy grace it is, and not by merit, 
That Nature's glorious fullness I inherit ; 
That I, with all embracing arms, may press 
The perfect Beauty, present in Thy works. 
Present in all, in all profoundly lurks ; 
May take the matchless Venus to my side. 
As mine elect, my well beloved, immortal Bride ; 
With a legitimate and hol)^ rapture, kiss 
Her unaverted face, and taste a boundless bliss. 
O what am I, that I should so aspire. 
Thus with the Daughter of th' Eternal Sire, 
Refulgent with His likeness, aye to wed ! 
To place the crown of glory on my head, 



?2S POEMS OF PLACES. 

By virtue of these high espousals, heir 
Of Thine eternal kingdom which is everywhere. 
I now but know in part, 
The sum of what Thou art ; 
'Tis little that I see 
Of her infinity, 
But little of those charms, whose perfect whole 
Shall ravish the transfigured and exalted soul. 
Immortal gratitude. 
For that sweet earnest of beatitude, 
■ Found in those glimpses wliich to me are given, 
Of her whose proper residence is heaven ! 
When comes a radiance streaming from the sky, 
I, by that token, know that she is nigh : 
When Earth puts on her robe of purest green, 
And flovv'ers fair 
Spring everywhere, 
Her presence perfumes and endears the scene ; 
When Ocean rises in his majesty, 
I've seen her walking on the troubled Sea, 
An angel form 
Amid the storm, 
But never, never, until now, 



POEMS OF PLACES. 229 

Till in this place, 

So seen her face to face, 
Celestial glories beaming on her brow, 
By each indubitable sign 
Proved an apocalypse of the divine. 

All hail, Niagara ! immortal Wonder, hail ! 

Rapt as a prophet, I have stood 
And nothing spoke, for what could words avail? 

Or, said unconscious. It is good, 
Good to be here, 
With God so near. 
Here will I stay, nor evermore depart ! 

What time my soul astonished, from her swoon 

Awoke, her powers recovered soon. 
Meanwhile, I felt th' eternal mystery. 

Like lightning through my being dart. 
Then as I entered that o'ershadowing Cloud, 
That dread Shekinah, Shrine of Deity, 
And fell upon my face, and heard One speak aloud, 

But not in mortal dialect, or speech ; 

The sacred import, to my soul's high reach 

In that deep trance, intelligible alone. 

That mystery of words, that thunder tone. 



23° POEMS OF PLACES. 

I heard, and felt — or, was it but a dream ? 

The adamantine chain of sin 
Fall off, as riven by the lightning's beam, 
And a new birth and being thence begin. 
O, can it be. 

This broken chain 
Shall close again. 
And I shall lose my new found liberty ? 

Is God not here ? 
The thunder utters. Yes ! 

The trembling rocks in fear 
The truth confess ; 
The assenting mountains nod. 

And all things round 

Echo one sound, 
All testify of God. 

O, let my soul exult. 

That here she may consult, 
The Oracle Divine ! 

That at Jerusalem, no more. 

Is fixed as heretofore 
Jehovah's Shrine ! 
That ancient ritual is past, 
That Temple to the ground is cast, 



POEMS OF PLACES. 

Those symbols and those semblances sublime, 

Endured but for a time. 
Their everlasting prototypes, I ween, 
Their patterns on the Mount by Moses seen, 

Were these, are here ! 

This much, at least is clear; 
If, in th' immensity of space, 
God makes one spot His special dwelling-place. 
That sacred spot is this. 

I find the witness and the sign. 

Authentic, marvelous, divine. 
Here in th' ebullient, luminous abyss. 

Where thousand suns once bright. 
So seems, now back exhausted pour 

Their full collected light. 
In ceaseless flood for evermore. 

I tread the vestibule, I press, 
I, who am dust and nothingness. 
Within the Veil, into the Holiest Place, 
Even to the Mercy seat, and Throne of Grace. 

I look around, I kneel. 

The Deity I feel ; 

Too bright for visual sense 



232 POEMS OF PLACES. 

Is His magnificence, 
Rut there, methinks, on the horizon's rim 
I see the hovering wings of Cherubim. 

Open, ye crystal gates ! 

The King of Glory waits ; 

Ye rainbows, spring your arch 

For His triumphal march ! 
Who is the King of Glory ? He 
Whose presence fills immensity ; 
Th' Omnific Word, who spoke, 
And day on darkness broke. 
Who is the King of Glory ? Who ? 
The Faithful and the True, 
The Lord, omnipotent to save, 
Who triumphed o'er the grave ; 
Who rising from the dead 
Captivity captive led ; 
Who spoiled Infernal Powers, 
And made the victory ours. 
He, wonderful to tell, 
Still deigns with men to dwell ; 
Has built Him here a home. 
Gates, pillars, architrave, and dome 
Of molten emeralds, and precious gems.. 



POEMS OF PLACES. '^'^i 

Richer than grace imperial diadems : 

Here reared His throne, here fixed His seat, 

Where everlasting thunders beat. 

Open, ye pearly gates ! 

Tlie King of Glory waits. 
Ye sapphire doors, wide open swing, 
Admit the pomp of the Celestial King ! 

Ye censers, smoke ! waft high. 

Your clouds of incense filling all the sky I 
In this high service can I bear no part ? 

One sacrifice 

He'll not despise, 
A broken spirit and a contrite heart. 

By this rapt converse, lifted high 

Upon the wings of ecstasy, 

My soul, grown buoyant, bold and rash. 

Goes forth to meet the Cataract's dash. 

I climb the fearful precipice. 

And look and lean there o'er the abyss ; 

Ascend the loftiest pinnacle, 

Of this rock-built and mighty fane — 
A thought, I instantl}- repel, 

A horrid thought, shoots through my brain. 



'34 POEMS OF PLACES. 

As standing on the perilous steep, 
The Enemy tempts me down to leap. 

As through the lone and wooded isle, 
I pensive walk and muse the while, 
The scales fall suddenly from my eyes : 
With a new transport of surprise, 
I see all common things intense 
With mighty pomp of evidence ; 
Each insect, flower, and shrub, and tree 
Blazing with proofs of Deity : 
Where'er I look, where'er I turn, 
His glowing footprints I discern ; 
In small and great, alike, I find 
Sweet intimations left behind 
Of wisdom, goodness, power, and grace — 
The glory of a hidden face : 
In every sound, in accents clear, 
His narne is whispered in my ear : 
My quickened sense, now as I pass. 
Hears holy anthems from the grass. 
Meek insect choristers ! not in vain, 
You feebly pipe your humble strain. 
Not less significant, when understood, 
Than thunder sounding through the wood. 



POEMS OF PLACES. 235 



WINDERMERE,* 

ONCE more, sweet Windermere ! once more 
I tread thy consecrated shore : 
From distant lands my pilgrim feet 
Have sought thy exquisite retreat, 
Where thou, like holiest anchorite. 
Dost muse by day and dream by night. 
While mirrored in thy peaceful breast, 
All images of beauty rest — 
The glories of the morn and even. 
The matchless excellence of heaven. 

The mountains, towering and grand, 
O'erlooking thee, enamoured stand ; 
Well pleased, each in his proper place 
To catch new glimpses of thy face. 
With what a splendor God endows 
Their most superb and kingly brows ! 
Yet not the proudest far or near. 
But holds thee honorable and dear. 



* Westmoreland, England. Wordsworth, Southcy, Coleridge, Wilson ( Chris- 
topher North), De Quincey, etc., were all sometime residents of the Lake District. 



236 POEMS OF P LACE S. 

How those behind would seem to strain, 
And tiptoe stand a sight to gain ! 

A higher homage yet than these 

Is whispered in the passing breeze ; 

Celestial warblings, soft and clear, 

Steal sweetly on my ravished ear. 

O favored Lake ! above whose banks, 

Immortal Bards have sung their thanks, 

For that they knew to thee they owed 

Much of the rapture they bestowed, 

That'half the secret of their art 

Was thy shrined beauty in their heart. 

1855. 



IN MEMO RI AM 



HUMAN LIFE. 

PRAYER IN AFFLICTION. 

ELEGIAC STANZAS. 

CONSOLATION. 

ON THE DEATH OF A MISSIONARY. 



IN MEMORIAM 



HUMAN LIFE. 

AH ! what is Life ? a vessel, driven 
Across Time's wild and storm-swept sea. 
Unhelmed, unmasted, sails all riven, 

To sink at last, no more to be ? 
A thing of nameless destiny ? 

From nothing sprnng, to nothing born. 
Unless to vice and misery. 

Provoking pity less than scorn? 

O, dark in mind, if not in deed, 

Whom guilt, perchance, prompts thus to think ! 
For creedless fools have still a creed. 

That lead-like helps the soul to sink. 
They, pushed by passion to the brink 

Of sin's abyss, leap madly down, 
And then there's naught from which to shrink. 

So dreadful as their Maker's frown. 



240 IN MEM OR I AM. 

The years depart, and with them go 

The friends we love, ah ! wliitlier fled? 
Unwarned, mysterious breezes blow, 

That waft to regions of the dead. 
Gained they the port with sails all spread, 

Where sky doth mingle with the main ? 
Where tears once wiped, no more are shed ? 

Then life is loss and death is 2:ain. 



Ah me ! what bitter tears I poured 

Above a Father's corse of late ! 
No heavier loss e'er son deplored ; 

I mourned continually his fate. 
With sorrow that would not abate. 

Till with the sweet blood mingled gall- 
For fear and unbelief were great, 

And every faith-born comfort small. 

Sleep is a myster}^, no less 

Than Death, and may bestow 

A sense and function like to this, 
Which waking we can never know. 



IN MEM OR I AM. 241 

May lift the veil that hides, and show 

The secrets of the world unseen ; 
Call up the dead of long ago 

For converse them and us between. 

Shade of my sire ! O, nightly bless 

M}'' pillow in that radiant guise, 
I saw Thee once, when comfortless. 

And heard with rapturous surprise, 
Thee, rapt new comer from the skies, 

With oath-like emphasis declare, 
That all that's great in Goodness lies. 

And all that's sweet, and all that's fair. 

Tossed on the waves of Time and Change, 

That roll and rock, and rush, and rave, 
Engulfing all within their range. 

Each billowy vale a mighty grave , 
I see a hand stretched out to save. 

There far within yon azure cope, 
As borne aloft on topmost wave, 

Cast forth, my soul, thine anchor, hope ! 

Cast all on God when worst ills frown ! 

For neither can thy burden small, 
16 



242 IN ME MORI AM. 

Nor multitude of worlds weigh down, 
The Godhead underlying all. 

Upstarting quickly at Heaven's call, 
Strain up the Mount that's summitless. 

Where sunbeams ever flash and fall — 
Sky-piercing Mount of Holiness. 



PRAYER IN AFFLICTION. 

SINCE dust to Deity may speak, 
I come, O God ! with bleeding breast ; 
Hot tears fast falling on my cheek, 

Dissolving manhood ; heaving chest ; 
And quivering lip that unexpressed 

Leaves words and utters only sighs — 
The greatness of my grief attest, 
Grief steeped in bitterest memories. 

I need not tell Thee she is dead, 

Cold in the church-yard, who to me 

Was as all earthly joys instead — 
My wife, my lost felicity. 



IN MEM OR I AM. 243 

I stretch forth vacant arms to Thee, 

The while my heart makes bitter moan, 

That I no more her form shall see, 
That I must tread life's path alone. 

Thy brilliant boon of love and bliss, 
In her bestowed, is mine no more : 

help my heart to bow to this. 

To trust, and tremble, and adore ! 
For she, called mine, was Thine before, 

Nor did my merit title give. 
Else wouldst Thou now the lost restore, 

And cause the dead again to live. 

Her life transcribed each wedlock vow : 
Prized much, but not enough, while here, 

1 owe to her sweet memory now, 

" The meed of some melodious tear." * 
Thrice happy he, whose heart is clear 
From self-reproach, regret, remorse ; 
Who, through no hour of former year, 
Has failed to prove love's utmost force. 

* Lycidas, line 14. — Milton. 



?44 I^ M EM OR I A M. 

II. 

O, she was all a wife should be ! 

Albeit her thoughts were meekly bent 
On household good and piety, 

What life so sweetly eloquent, 
Or so acceptable to Thee, 

As one in humble duty spent ! 

,If not to dazzle with the play 

Of wit was hers, she knew to bless. 

With smiles as cheerful as the day. 
And looks of love and tenderness : 

Maintaining thus by happiest art, 

Perpetual sunshine in the heart. 

'Twas not the fading charms of face, 
That riveted Love's golden chain : 

It was the high celestial grace 

Of Goodness, that doth never wane — 

Whose are the sweets that never pall, 

Delicious, pure, and crowning all. 

III. 

Now she is gone ! now she is gone ! 
Her, thickest night doth ever shroud 



IN MEM OKI AM. 245 

From mortal view, and I'm like one 
Whose "welfare passeth as a cloud." 

Lo ! I too go with sorrow bowed 
To the dim land of shadows, where 

She waiteth, haply, 'mid the crowd 
Of coming souls, my entrance there. 

Yet were it better far to think. 

She's now my glistering angel guard. 
Still joined by love's unsevered link. 

And near to keep aye watch and ward — 
Thy swift winged messenger, O Lord ! 

To bear me good, to banish ill. 
Along life's pathway, steep and hard. 

My solace, friend, and help-meet still. 

O, that my smitten heart may gush 

Melodious praise — like as when o'er 
^olian harp-strings wild winds rush. 

And all abroad sad music pour. 
So sweet, Heaven's minstrelsy might hush 

Brief time to listen — for I know 
The hand, that doth my comforts crush, 

Builds bliss upon the base of woe. 



246 IN MEMORIAM. 

If Thine own Son was perfect made, 

Through suffering deep as hell's abyss. 
And light afflictions here are paid 

With an eternal weight of bliss ; — 
Sure I, unmurmuring, should kiss 

Thy rod of judgment, patient climb 
The Mount of Pain, content that this 

Leads gradual to Thy seat sublime. 

The time is near, when all shall seem, 

That men pursue with ceaseless thirst, 
The vainest nothings of a dream. 

Or phantoms by wild madness nurst : 
Then when of life I know the worst. 

And death his stroke shall not defer, 
On my rapt soul perchance shall burst, 

The vision bright of Heaven and her. 

The murmur of my whispered prayer 
Fails not to reach Thy listening ear — 

Though sounds unnumbered fill the air. 
It o'er them all swells loud and clear, 



IN MEMORIAM. 247 

Proceeds it but from heart sincere, 

All crushed and contrite, yielding thence 

A pleasing fragrance, far more dear 
Than sweetest smolce of frankincense. 



ELEGIAC STANZAS.* 

OUR hold on life, how frail ! 
We draw precarious breath, 
Yea, every one tliat lives is doomed 
And dedicate to death ! 

But then to Faith is given 

A faculty intense. 
To see a life beyond the tomb, 

Invisible to sense ; 

Where, on celestial tlirones. 

Sits crowned immortal worth ; 
For Heaven is peopled with the good 
And beautiful of eartli. 

♦ On the death of Miss Sarah C. Pennington, daughter of Dr. S. H. Pennington. 



248 IN MEMORIAM. 

Too oft, when such depart, 

We wonder and we weep, 
As though we deemed the swoon of death, 

Were an eternal sleep. 

Absurdly we complain : 

Those virtues, that we prize. 

Are but their spotless meetness for 
And title to the skies. 

A maiden lately stood. 

One foot upon the sod. 
The other on the golden stairs 

Conducting up to God ; 

While angels hovering near, 

Shook fragrance from their wings. 

And, ever and anon, were heard 
Mysterious whisperings. 

The meaning well we knew ; 
So prayed with fearful heart : 
"Since Heaven is rich, and Earth is poor, 
O let her not depart ! " 



IN memoriam: 249 

We got not what we asked, 

Because we asked amiss : 
Fond erring prayers could not delay 

Her entrance into bliss. 

When all was o'er, we saw 

With hushed and v/ondering breath, 
That loveliness, which life adorned. 

Now beautifying death. 

From heavenly heights could we 

Take in the mighty sweep. 
We then, like her, should doubtless see 

There was no cause to weep. 

But earthly mists obscure. 

And tears bedim our sight, 
And darkly through our veil of grief 

Is seen that world of light. 

O for the darkened home ! 

O for the vacant chair ! 
O for the voice that nevermore 

Shall wake sweet echoes there ! 



25° IN ME MORI AM. 

Forgive us, tluit we mourn ! 
For that our spirits faint ! 
Forgive us, that we wish thee back, 
O dear, O happy saint ! 
Sunday Evening, October 31, 1858. 



u 



CONSOLATION. 

NSPARING Death has trampled down 
Unnumbered generations. 
And made the earth a Golgotha 

Of endless desolations ; 
And still within the monster's breast 

Th' eternal hunger rages. 
Unsatisfied, throughout the long 
And mighty lapse of ages. 

He laughs at bars, his shadow falls, 

Invisible to mortals. 
Across the threshold of our homes, 

And passes through the portals ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 251 

And goes into the chamber, where 

Our dearest ones are sleeping ; 
When, straiglitway, piercing shrieks are heard, 

And sounds of bitter weeping. 

O ye, whose eyelids overflow, 

Like springs of living water ; 
Who day and night, unceasingly 

Bewail a lovely daughter ; 
Who sadly sit amid the wreck 

Of joys too fondly cherished. 
And shattered schemes of happiness, 

And expectations perished — 
Look up ! dear stricken ones, look up ! 

Amid your deep affliction, 
And you shall see the hand that smites, 

Upraised in benediction ; 
And through the breaking clouds, behold 

The calm cerulean spaces, 
Bestudded thick with loving eyes. 

And sweet familiar faces. 

Your sometime darling needs no more 

A parent's weak protection • 
Forever folded in the arms 

Of Infinite Affection ; 



252 IN MEMORI'AM. 

Upon the Saviour's bosom placed, 
Above the reach of sorrow, 

She waits your coming, knowing well, 
'Twill be upon the morrow. 

Escaped the turbulence of earth, 

The evil and the error ; 
And more than conqueror over death. 

Its darkness and its terror ; 
Ye surely would not have her now. 

All heaven behind her flinging. 
Put on the robes of grief again, 

Who wears the robes of singing. 



ON THE DEATH OF A MISSIONARY.* 

HOW sweet the memory of those, 
Who toiled for Christ, and now repose 
Beneath the soil their feet had trod, 
While that they sowed the seed of God ! 
In whom the Saviour's love so wrought. 
They gave up all and judged it naught — 

* Miss Elizabeth Graham, who went as a Missionary among the Choctaws- 
afterwards married to Rev. Mr. Reed of that Mission. 



IN MEMORIAM. 253 

Deeming His smile made rich amends, 
For loss of country, home, and friends. 

O thou, too early gone to rest ! 
Whose love was tried and stood the test : 
Thy Master's pleasure understood. 
Consulting not with flesh and blood. 
With resolute heroic heart. 
Thou madest reiidy to depart — 
" Wilt thou ? " He said. Thou saidst, " I will ! " 
And rose the mandate to fulfil. 

How strong wert thou who seemed so weak, 

O gentle one ! O maiden meek ! 

While love, that stronger is than death, 

Thy spirit nerved, Elizabeth ! 

Nothing thy steadfast soul could shake ; 

The cross was dear for Jesus' sake ; 

Vain all impediment and bar. 

When Duty beckoned from afar. 

What if no future sun should rise. 
No morrow break in eastern skies. 
For aye, to all of woman-born 
Were shut and sealed the gates of morn, 



254 IN MEMORIAM. 

Streaked by no gleam of morning light 
The endless horror of that night,— 
To weary watchers for the day, 
What joy were in a single ray ! 

Worse than the blindness of the blind, 

Darker than night, the night of mind ; 

Sadder and gloomier than death. 

The life that breathes but common breath. 

Lo ! in immensity they grope. 

But find not God, and have no hope. 

O might that Sun, which shines for all. 

Upon those darkened eyeballs fall ! 

As instruments of Heaven's sweet will, 
Thy delicate fingers used their skill 
To couch the cataract of sin. 
And let the welcome splendor in. 
How glorious ! when the poor Choctaw 
Looked up amazed, and said he saw ; 
B}'' spiritual miracle of sight. 
Made conscious of a world of light. 

O mother ! called to her reward, 
In the dear presence of her Lord, 



IN ME JM O R J A M . 255 

Be comforted ! thy cloud of grief 
Hath silver lining, and is brief. 
A little while, and thou shalt be 
Made happy in her company : 
A moment's pause of pulse and breath 
And thou art with Elizabeth. 
January 27, 1857. 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP 



EPITHALAMIUM. 

THE FRIENDS I LEFT BEHIND. 

A NEW YEAR'S GREETING. 

TO MY LATE GUESTS. 

FOUR-SCORE. 

LINES TO MISS H . 

FAITHFUL FOREVER. 



17 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP 



EPITHALAMIUM. 

WE in life's journey blindly run, 
We. brave the dark of what's to be ; 
But cannot tell, what we shall see 
Or suffer by to-morrow's sun. 

Lifting our eyes, we catch a glance 
Of some fair face unseen before. 
It may be through an open door 

Which straight is shut. We call it chance. 

But yet that casual look, so brief. 
May be decisive of our fate : 
The soul, discerning there its mate, 

Claims fellowship of joy and grief. 

Soon marriage bells swing to and fro, 
And, with alternate stroke, repeat 
Mine, i/ii/if, in iteration sweet. 

To make of twain one life below. 



26o POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Hail ! happy pair ! by welding flame 

Of love made one, a dual soul, 

A richer self, a dearer whole, 
In spirit one, and one in name. 

No knife so keen as can divide 

Your new-born selfhood, or restore 
Each soul to what it was, before 

You were a bridegroom and a bride. 

But keener than the tempered blade 

Are thoughtless words ; they cut and pierce, 
And waken agonies more fierce 

Than wounds by mortal weapons made. 

Beware of these ! abhor as hell. 
All strife and schism, making two. 
Cutting your vital oneness through ! 

Divided halves could live as well. 

Pursue content in pleasant ways ! 
And suck the nectar of the hours, 
As bees extract the sweets of flowers, 

And hive the honey of the days ! 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 261 

And would you not Heaven's blessing lose, 

Let prayer each morning duly rise, 

Like exhalations toward the skies 
To fall at night in friendly dews ! 

Bend meekly to affliction's rod ! 

Be sure the strokes are kindly meant ! 

Together climb the steep ascent 
And hand in hand mount up to God ! 



THE FRIENDS I LEFT BEHIND. 

OVER the Waters, waste and wide, 
Impelled by a resistless force. 
Scornful alike of wind and tide, 

The gallant Ship pursues her course, 
And every moment greater grows 

The space, that doth from Home divide, 
But now my spirit backward goes, 

And I am seated by the side 
Of those, the faithful, fond, and kind, 
The cherished Friends I left behind. 



262 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Th' unfathomed Ocean, dark and dread 

Upbears me on his heaving breast ; 
And nightly in my cradle bed. 

He rocks me pleasantly to rest. 
I sleep, but to my waking thought, 

The blessed form of one long dead 
Appears, as when her hand I sought, 

As when I in her beauty wed, 
The sweet, the gentle, and the kind, 
In life's sad journey left behind. 

Far to the North we boldly steer 

In lone and unfrequented seas ; 
I feel the mystery and the fear. 

And they compel me to my knees : 
Then softly in my Maker's ear, 

Devoutly I my wishes pour. 
These watery solitudes grow dear, 

They bring me closer than before 
To Him the great, the good, the kind, 
My God, and theirs, I left behind. 

What though the broad and billowy Deep, 
Now for a time shall intervene. 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 263 

No roaring gulf of waters sweep 

Our fond and loving hearts between : 
A few brief moons shall wax and wane, 

And, guided by that Power unseen, 
I then shall clasp dear hands again. 

Shall greet each well-remembered scene. 
And shall, I know, still constant find 

The long-tried Friends I left behind. 
At Sea, Steamer Pacific, June, 1854. 



A NEW YEAR'S GREETING. 

A HAPPY New Year to you all : 
In answer to my humble call, 
On your dear heads may blessings fall 

F'rom Heavenly Friend, 
Without a moment's interval, 
To the Year's end ! 

O, there is breath, that's more than breath, 
A prayer that saith more than it saith, 
The prayer of prayer, the prayer of faith, 



264 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

That prayer I pray, 
(Which the heart only uttereth) 
To God to-day ! 

That love is poor the mouth can speak, 
The language of the lips is weak, 
No organ hath true love, we seek 

In vain t' impart 
(Though ours the master tongue of Greek) 

Th' unuttered heart. 

As one great instrumental whole, 

Responsive to divine control, 

The spheres make music as they roll : 

O, like to this. 
Those sweet vibrations of the soul 

Where true love is ! 

When summer melts the selfish frost. 
How like a prince — disdaining cost. 
Counting for love the world well lost — 

The yearning breast 
Would the full universe exhaust 

To make one blest ! 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 265 

When spoils of Nature and of Art 
Have all been lavished, still, O Heart ! 
Esteeming this the smallest part. 

Thy fond desire 
Would into unseen regions dart 

For something higher. 

Even so, my wishes upward rise. 

On wings of prayer above the skies. 

To bring that good, God's grace supplies 

To sinful men, 
From that dear bosom, where it lies. 

To you. Amen ! 
January i, 1865. 



TO MY LATE GUESTS. 

RKSPONSE TO "E.G. K." 

TRUE Friendship is a goodly tree, 
Whose roots strike deeper than the sea 
Into the heart of certainty : 
'Bove windy wars, 
It mounts, and blooms eternally 
Beyond the stars. 



^66 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

I have a Friend, a Friend sincere, 

My father's Friend, thence doubl}^ dear, 

Approved and prized through many a year : 

Coleridgean speecli,* 
That often cliarmed my youthful ear. 

Still lives to teach. 

Another Friend to me is given 
By the beneficence of Heaven — 
The Graces three, the Sibyls seven. 

The sacred Nine, 
To her akin — one of them even — 

This Friend of mine ! 

From hidden Heliconian springs, 
I hear melodious murmurings, 
Sweet, dreamy, far-off echoings 

Of streams at night — 
The noise of swift Pegasean wings 

In onward flight. 

*The reference is to Hon. William B. Kinney, lately deceased. His friend, 
Rev. Samuel I. Prime, D. D.,inan eloquent discourse delivered at his funeral, 
October 23, i83o, spoke of his remarkable powers in conversation, saying that he 
had never known his equal. Certainly, there are few to whom the language of 
Shakespeare would better apply than to him. The result of his studies and reflec- 
tions, when dilating upon some favorite theme, 

" His fair tongue 

Delivered in such apt and gracious words, 

That aged ears played truant at his tale. 

And younger hearers were quite ravished, 

So sweet and voluble was his discourse." 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 267 

As flame conjunctive is to fire, 
As music to the smitten wire, 
As praise to the celestial choir. 

To her belong 
The inspiration of the lyre, 

Instinctive song. 

She, courteous Muse ! does not disdain 

To visit me, with me remain : 

She weaves me rhymes to make me vain ; 

My heart deceives 
With praises, thick as autumn rain. 

Or falling leaves. 

October's tinted days have fled ; 

Both welcomes and farewells been said : 

Make glad our tlireshold with your tread. 

Sweet Friends, once more ! 
"SALVE!"* is writ, beneath, o'erhead, 

An open door. 
November 4, 1S70. 

*It speaks well for the hospitality of the ancient Rornans that they caused to be 
inscribed on the threshold of their dwellings, as seen to-day in Pompeii, the salu- 
tatory word "Salve!" equivalent to our "Welcome!" " Good-day to you ! " 
" Health to you ! " It is notable that the primary reference is to bodily well-being, 
whereas the Oriental and Christian form of .salutation, "Peace be with you!" 
(Pa.\ vobiscum) respects tranquility of mind, as if this was man's first concern and 
highest good, rather than healtli. 



268 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

FOUR-SCORE. 

DEAR, patient sufferer, aged saint! 
Although it makes us sad, 
To see you worn with pain, and faint, 

We grateful are and glad, 
And magnify, and bless the Lord, 

Who has rebuked our fears, 
And condescended to regard 

The pleading of our tears ; 
And turned the shafts of death aside, 

So that they did no harm. 
And bade you in His love confide. 

And lean upon His arm ; 
Who has not left you comfortless. 

But made His waters burst. 
In streams of flowing plenteousness, 

To satisfy your thirst. 
Of vanished years He to the sum 

Has added one year more. 
Until to-day your children come 

To bless you now fourscore. 
God bless you. Mother I — God, the Rock 

Of the believincr heart — 



POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 269 

Our prayers at Heaven's high gate shall knock. 

Nor will we hence depart, 
But without ceasing, pray and plead, 

That He will give relief, 
And bind the wounds that ache and bleed, 

And heal your present grief. 
Wish not to go, or wish in vain ! 

We still would hold you fast ; 
Nor have you yet, your wish obtain, 

But keep you to the last. 
Though life should seem a dreary waste, 

Bring us still more in debt ; 
Go you to Heaven ! but make no haste, 

Go slowly, go not yet ! 



T 



LINES TO MISS H . 

URN heavenward, Lady, thy dark eyes ! 
Confront the midnight of the skies ; 
And let the all-enclosing sense 
Take in the spectacle immense ! 
That moment, when thine eyelids ope, 
Enter the glories of the cope, 



270 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

Ten thousand thousand worlds of light 
Throng the glad gateways of the sight, 
And all the stars reflected roll 
In the grand spaces of the soul. 
To make this pomp a part of thee, 
Thou needest nothing but to see. 

Lady ! behold, where spreads, above 
This lower sky, a sky of love : 
In that far firmanent divine, 
Th' unsetting stars of Virtue shine. 
The glory of that upper sphere 
Is mirrored in contrition's tear, 
As heaven's eternal arch of blue 
Is pictured in a drop of dew. 
Look up I believe ! the starry gloom 
Shall brighten more and more, and bloom, 
And God, descending with the rest. 
With light and beauty fill thy breast. 



P EM S OF FRI END SII IP . 271 

FAITHFUL FOREVER.* 

I LIKE the book, dear Mr. Kyte ! 
I judge quite orthodox and right 
The story's moral. I, too, hold, 
There's newness in the trite and old ; 
In spite of triteness, there's not one 
Grows ever weary of the sun ; 
And underneath the common-place. 
There dwells a glory and a grace. 
Concealed, mayhap, from careless eyes, 
But manifested to the wise. 
Though worn the theme, not East nor West 
Has aught of so much interest 
As Love, the marrying sweet bond 
Of all things beautiful and fond : 
As dear, as holy, and as fresh. 
As when God made of twain one flesh. 
That drunken folly of the heart, 
Which some call Love 's a thing apart : 
For Love, true Love, is sober, wise. 
Blesses, exalts, and purifies. 

*Thc lines here Riven, were written on the fly-leaf of a book, loaned bya friend, 
entitled, " Faithful Forever," by Coventry Patmore. 



272 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

The doctrine's good, and I agree 
Love's larger half 's Humility. 
Each night it nestles on the sod, 
And every morning soars to God. 
Up from the ground it lark-like springs, 
Exulting in the bliss of wings ; 
Up, and still upward, climbing higher 
The skyey summits of desire ; 
From dizzy heights to dizzier height 
Of the ethereal infinite, 
But never reaching the far top, 
Where the imagined merits stop 
Of the loved object : wearied pinion 
Has rest below in Love's dominion. 
Which comprehends both earth and sky, 
The near and far, the low and high ; — 
Its voice, — now heard above the cloud, 
Ringing sweetly, ringing loud — 
Descends, and drops to earth again, 
A lyric shower, a heavenly rain. 
Low on the ground with folded wing 
'Tis sweet to sit, and not to sing 
For a brief while : observe and keep 
Melodious silence during sleep ; 



POEMS OF FRIEN DSHIP. 273 

And then, at e^irliest day-breeik, 

The matin song of worship wake : 

A moment pausine^ to confess 

In meekness its unworthiness. 

Then up the skyey stairs to run 

Before the risins^ of the sun ; 

And the belated stars surprise 

VVitli the bright rapture of its eyes : 

And pour its heart of fulhiess out 

To the First Fair with song and shout. 

Love has no limits : by this sign 

Known in the human as divine. 

All dangers, it confronts and dares. 

All deaths, destructions, and despairs. 

How freely would the loving Wife 

Throw down her pennyworth of life. 

And all the worthlessness of wealth. 

For the cheap purchase of liis health. 

Who is her all, when death draws near 

And fills her heart with mortal fear I 

What Father but would die to save 

His Child seen struggling in the wave ! 

Th' unmeasured bounty of a Friend 

Has no beginning and no end ! 
i8 



•74 POEMS OF FRIENDSHIP. 

The Lover rates his own, far less 
Than the Beloved One's happiness ; 
Rather than she should suffer woe 
He e'en possession would forego. 
For Love *s forgetfulness of mine, 
And a dear preference of thine ; 
A free bestowal of one's self, 
Unpurchasable by sordid pelf ; 
Not a base bargain and profane, 
Weighing of values, hope of gain. 
All things are sold in the world's mart, 
But not th' unmarketable heart. 

Honoria yields to homely Jane — 
" Favor 's deceitful, beauty vain " — 
Love, based on beauty, cannot last, 
Built on the perishable and past. 
When beauty 's fled, pray, Mr. Vaughan ! 
Will love grow cold ? will you love on ? 
Love, built on the immortal grace. 
Which is not of the form or face. 
But born of God, shall have in both 
Eternal increment and growth : 
Or fair or not, 'tis all the same — 
*' Faithful Forever," Frederick Graham ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 



DIES IRJE.— T/irci' Versions. 

ALL SAVED. 

LUTHER'S HYMN.— OnV/zWaW Translation. 

WOMAN. — A^eiuark Orphan Asyhim 

STREAMLET AND VOOl..— Protestant Foster Home. 

ANNIVERSARY HYMNS. I.— IX. " 

THE ^.WY.t<L.— Home for Aged Women. 

DEDICATION HYMNS, Etc. I.— XIII. 

MISSIONARY HYMNS. I.— XIV. 

ODE TO COLD WATER. 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 



DIES I R iE . Additional Versions. * 

I. 

AY of audit and decision, 

Fiery wreck and world collision, 
Witnessed in prophetic vision ! 

O, what trembling the world over, 
When the coming Judge shall hover. 
All to sift and all discover. 

Trumpet-call shall shake the centre, 
Tombs of all the regions enter. 
Rock or marble no preventer. 

Death and Nature shall, with wonder, 
See the dead arise from under, 
Answering to that voice of thunder. 

♦The extraordinary number of Translations of the Z)/Vj /;«■, which have been 
made, particularly in German and English, one might suppose, would have 
exhausted, before now, all the possibilities of variation. The difficulties attendant 
upon the reproduction of the triplicate double rhyme have served as a perpetual 
challenge to the skill of the translator, and formed no bad test of the resources of 
the language in that particular. The author, having already published Thirteen 
Original Versions, is not sure but that he owes an apology to the public for adding 
to the number. What is the advantage, it may be asked, of such a multiplicity of 
versions? The answer would need to be, none, except as it may aflord a curious 

19 



278 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Record, to be blotted never, 

Of each thought, word, deed, endeavor, 

Shall be brought to doom forever. 

When the Judge shall sit, all hidden. 
Guilty mazes shall be thridden, 
And each vain pretense o'erridden. 

Ah ! what plea shall I then offer? 
Patron beg ? Defence then proffer ? 
When the just pales with the scoffer. 

King of dreadful power and splendor ! 
Unbought grace me freely render. 
Fount of Love, divinely tender ! 

Jesu, mind ! 'twas I made tougher 

Thy hard task, Thy rough road rougher, 

Nor me lose who made Thee suffer ! 

and not uninstructive illustration of the many ways there are of saying the same 
thing. The Three New Versions here given (making sixteen in all, of which nine 
preserve the double rhyme of the original) were written some time since, but not 
published until now. The first of the three is distinguished by the absence of the 
present participle, throughout, in the formation of the double rhymes, which is the 
common and rather cheap expedient of most translators, being driven thereto, by 
the paucity of these, outside of participial words. The experiment in variation 
could be pushed no doubt still further without injury to sense or form, the chief 
thing needed being a little patient painstaking in order to secure a proper result. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 279 

Tired, Thou sought'st me, for me smarted 
Cruel wounds Thy dear flesh parted. 
Let such labor not be thwarted ! 

Righteous Judge ! forgive my treason, 
Grant free pardon, ere that season 
Of account and final reason. 

Heavy is my heart and leaden, 
Conscious crimes my forehead redden, 
Spare me, Lord ! my terrors deaden ! 

If more vile than ordinary, 

Thou who heard'st the Thief and Mary, 

Grant me succor necessary ! 

Though my prayers have worth not any. 
Great Thy mercies are, and many. 
Let me burn not in Gehenna ! 

While the goats affrighted cower, 
With Thy sheep O let me tower 
On the right hand of Thy power ! 



28o MISCELLA N EOU S POEM S. 

When, " Depart ! " shall seal conviction, 
Doom to fiery infliction. 
Welcome me with benediction ! 

When my bruised heart faintly flutters, 
And my tongue its last prayer mutters. 
Hear the dying sigh it utters ! 

II. 

DAY of fiery wrath unsparing ! 
End of all things here declaring-! 
David thus and Sibyl swearing ! 

What shall be the consternation, 
When, with eyes that search creation. 
Comes the Judge for strict probation ! 

Trumpet summons shall be given, 
And the quick and dead be driven 
All before the Throne of Heaven. 

Death and Nature, sympathizing, 
Stunned shall be, at the surprising 
Spectacle of that uprising. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 281 

Record, traced by tlie All-seeing, 
Shall be spread, for the decreeing 
Of the fate of every being. 

Therefore, when the Judge is seated, 
Guilt, uncovered and defeated, 
Shall have vengeance strictly meted. 

Who shall stand when He appeareth ? 
Plead or answer when He heareth ? 
Or so righteous but then feareth ? 

Saviour! free Thy mercy courses. 
Uncontrolled its sweet way forces, 
Let me taste it at its sources. 

Lose me not then, Jesus ! Master ! 
Cause that cost Thee dire disaster, 
Woes that followed fast and faster. 

Foot-sore, Thou didst seek me straying, 
On the Cross my forfeit paying. 
Let not fail such hard essa3Mng ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Judge, revealed for just espial ! 
Give not to my prayer denial, 
Pardon, ere that day of trial ! 

Groans I heave of bitter feeling, 
Cheek of fire my shame revealing, 
Spare me, at Thy footstool kneeling ! 

Thou, who Mary didst unfetter, 
And the Thief a greater debtor, 
Giv'st me hope who am no better. 

Naught my prayers, but O, divinely 
Good art Thou, so deal benignly, 
Lest I burn for aye condignly ! 

Place be with Thy sheep afforded, 

Station on Thy right accorded, 

Far from goats unwashed and sordid ! 

Let me, while these sink deploring. 
Where profoundest hell is roaring. 
Hear Thy heavenly welcome soaring ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 283 

When I enter death's chirk portal, 
Feebly beats the pulse aortal, 
Care then for my soul immortal ! 

III. 

DAY of wrath ! that day dismaying, 
All the world in ashes laying, 
David thus and Sibyl saying ! 

O what trembling ! when, down gliding, 
Shall the Judge, the skies dividing, 
Come for weighing and deciding ! 

Voice of Trumpet for all hearing, 
Through the sepulchres careering, 
Shall compel a world's appearing. 

Death and Nature, stunned and gasping, 
Shall, a broken sceptre grasping, 
Bide miraculous unclasping. 

Volume shall be brought, revealing 
Every secret thought and feeling, 
Fates of men forever sealing. 



284 MISCELLA NEOUS rOEM S. 

When that Inquest grand commences, 
Open and concealed offences 
Shall endure just consequences. 

What shall I then, wretched, squalid, 
Say or ask ? What plea make valid ? 
When the just man's cheek is pallid. 

Formidable King Eternal ! 

Fount of Love and Grace supernal ! 

Save Thou me from pains infernal ! 

Lose me not — the cause recalling 
Of Thy bitter way and galling — 
Jesus, on that day appalling ! 

Me Thou sought'st with feet untiring, 
On the Cross for me expiring. 
Let not fail such dear desiring. 

Thou, whose right hand grasps the thunder 
Give me timely refuge, under 
Sheltering wings of grace and wonder ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 285 

Self-condemned, I cease not sighing, 
Guilt my face with blushes dyeing. 
Spare me, on Thy grace relying ! 

Thou, who hast, aforetime, granted 

To the vile the pardon wanted, 

In me trembling hope hast planted. 

Gracious Lord ! my frail endeavor 
Kindly aid, from sin me sever. 
Lest I burn in fire forever ! 

Let me, when the skies are rifted, 
And the sheep from goats are sifted, 
Be to thy right hand uplifted ! 

While Gehenna is receiving 

Those, who hope behind are leaving, 

Give me part with the believing ! 

Prostrate, I beseech Thee, hear me ! 
In my dj'ing hour be near me. 
Present to support and cheer me I 



286 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 



ALL SAVED.^- 

At twilight's solemn hour, how sweet 

In the lone churchj^ard still to linger ; 
Where from each grave beneath our feet, 

There comes a voice, there points a finger ; 
And think how here, o'er precious dust, 

Angelic bands their watch are keeping, 
A sacred and perpetual trust, 

Till the Last Trump shall wake from sleeping ; 
And all the dead in Christ shall rise, 

With bodies incorrupt and glorious. 
To view Heaven oped, with dazzled eyes, 

O'er sin and death and hell victorious — 
Made radiant, like those radiant ones 

Whose awful pomp their souls is thrilling, 
As if the light of thousand suns. 

The heavenly firmament were filling. 
Amid those conscious orbs of light, 

One Central Orb the rest is dimming. 
Their proper splendors lost to sight 

In those in which themselves are swimming ; 

* Suggested by a Picture representing the Resurrection of a Pious Family. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 287 

The beams of Filial Godhead, spread 

O'er that bright host exceeding number, 
On those same eye-balls, lo ! are shed, 

So lately dark in mortal slumber. 
O ! for a pen of noblest art. 

To match the pencil's warm ideal ; 
That late was to my eyes and heart, 

As if the pictured scene were real, — 
A Pious Family portrayed. 

Their dusty beds together leaving ; 
In their first rapture half afraid. 

Lest they themselves might be deceiving. 

" O, can it be?" — each seemed to say — 
" Is this for me, a child of clay ? 

Have I propriety in this 

Unuttered, unimagined bliss ? 

Despite of unbelief and fear, 

O, am I safe ? O, am I here ? 

Praise ! praise, forever ! has none perished 

Of those we loved, so fondly cherished ? 

Are we all here, both young and old. 

All gathered in the heavenly fold — 

A happy family complete. 

To part no more, since now we meet ? 



288 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

" O, what amazing grace ! 
We who inhabited the grave's dark prison, 
Behold ! to immortality are risen, 

With no remaining trace 
Of old defilement and preceding shame — 
So strangely different, and yet the same. 

" See ! see ! the Heaven's are bowed ! 
Above all principalities and powers 
Sits our Deliverer, their Lord and ours ; 

And voices sweet and loud. 
Like mighty thunderings, and like the sound 
Of many waters, echo all around. 

"We see Him as He is, 
Incomparable in beauty. O how strange ! 
From glory unto glory we shall change 

Henceforth, until, like His, 
Shall be the fashion of each form and feature — 
The great Creator mirrored in the creature. 

" Hark ! Cherub voices say, 
'Lift up your heads, ye gates ! lift up, swing wide, 
Ye everlasting doors ! that, side by side 

With Heaven's great Monarch, they 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 289 

Whom He has ransomed, now may enter in — 
His blood-bought purchase, purified from sin.' 

" Adore ! adore ! adore ! 
We swiftly rise, upborne on mighty pinions, 
Through the immensity of God's dominions. 

We touch, we tread Heaven's floor ; 
With hallelujahs, psalms, and hymns of laud. 
We prostrate fall before the Throne of God. 

" From lips that ever burn. 
Ascends glad praise from the angelic choir ; 
But there are sounds struck from the Saint's soft lyre 

Which none but they can learn — 
The sweet, strange pathos of whose warbled hymn 
Doth ravish more than song of Seraphim. 

" Unending is this bliss. 
The pillared firmament and all the spheres 
May sink, perchance, in the long lapse of years, 

Swallowed in Night's abyss — 
But to the dvv^ellers in Eternity, 
A thousand years shall as a moment be." 

June 16, iS-ly. 



290 MI SCELLA NEO us POEMS 



LUTHER'S HYMN.* 

ORIGINAL. 

EIN' feste Burg ist unser Gott, 
Ein' gute Wehr und Waffen ; 
Er hilft uns frey aus aller Noth, 
Die uns jetz hat betroffen. 
Der alt' bose Feind 
Mit Ernst ers jetz meint ; 
Gross Macht und viel List 
Sein grausam Riistung ist 
Auf Erd ist nicht sein's Gleichen. 

Mit unsrer Macht ist Nichts gethan, 
Wir sind gar bald verloren ; 
* Es streit't fiir uns der rechte Mann, 

Den Gott selbst hat erkoren. 

Fragst du, wer er ist ? 

Er heisst Jesus Christ, 

*' Luther's paraphrase of the Forty-sixth Psalm, more remarkable for strength 
ihan melody, is eminently characteristic of one " whose words were half battles." 
Written in a time of the darkest peril, it breathes the same spirit of lofty courage 
and unshaken confidence in God, which prompted that memorable declaration of 
his, when dissuaded from entering Worms : " Were there as many devils in Worms 
as there are tiles on its roofs, I will enter ; " or that other one, still more memora- 
ble, " It is neither safe nor prudent to do aught against conscience. Here I stand. 
I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen !" Like Paul, he could say, " None 
of these things move me." 



M ISCELLANEOU S P OEM S. 291 

LUTHER' S HYMN. 

TRANSLATION. 

A FAST, firm fortress is our God, 
A right good ward and weapon ; 
He frees us with his helping rod 
From all the ills that happen. 
The ancient hellish foe 
In earnest means our woe ; 
His armor, cruel spite, 
Much cunning and great might, 
On earth is not his equal. 

By our own might is nothing done, - 

We quickly were defeated ; 
He fights for us, God's Chosen One, 
The right Man, highly seated. 
Who is He? dost thou seek ? 
Of Jesus Christ, we speak. 



Despite its ruggedness, this, by common consent, is regarded as the best of his 
Hymns. The merits of Luther's poetry, like his prose, consist not in the prctti- 
ness of its diction nor the melody of its flow, but its homely vigor and coarse 
strength. The bristling asperities of his words, like burrs, cause them to stick, 
so that the mind cannot rid itself of them even if it would. If the original be 
deficient in musical smoothness, the want of tliis is more than excusable in a 
version which aims to produce a literal likeness. It could hardly be faithful and 
not be rough. 



292 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Der Herr Zebaoth, 
Unci ist kein andrer Gott ; 
Das Fe!d muss er belialten ! 

Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wiir 
Und wollt uns gar versclilingen, 
So fiirchten wir uns nicht so sehr 
Es soil uns doch gelingen ! 
Der Fiirst dieser Welt, 
Wie sau'r er sich stellt 
Thut er uns doch Nichts ; 
Das macht, er ist gericht't ; 
Ein Wortlein kann ilin fallen. 

Das Wort sie sollen lassen stahn 
Und kein'n Dank dazu haben ! 
Er ist bey uns, auf unser Fleh'n 
Mit seinem Geist und Gaben. 
Nehm'n sie uns den Leib 
Gut', Ehr', Kind und Weib 
Lass fall re n dahin 
Sie habens kein'n Gewinn I 
IDas Reich muss uns doch bleiben ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 293 

Lord of Sabaoth, One 
God, other God there's none, 
The field, He needs must hold it. 

And were the earth of devils full. 

All eager us to swallow, 
No coward fears should backward pull, 
He'll make success still follow. 

Let this world's Prince look sour, 
He o'er us has no power 
By which we can be budged, 
He is already judged. 
One word can hurl him headlong. 

The Word of God they shall let stand. 

And no thanks have they for it ; 

His Spirit's aid is near at hand. 

To all who shall implore it. 

Take they from us life. 

Goods, fame, child, and wife — 

Let them ! when 'tis done, 

They will have nothing won 

God's kingdom must be left us. 

1853. 
20 



294 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



W O M A N . •- 

STRONG is my trust in Woman : in the might 
Of her serene and sweet sufificiency, 
Meeting each task and trial God appoints. 
On the horizon of man's destin)', 
Her love rose like a star to guide and cheer, 
Through his long night of sorrow here below. 
O, not in vain did the Creator pour, 
Through all her being's depths, so great a love, 
Lavish of highest gifts, affections infinite. 
From this grand source, this multiplying fount, 
Has flowed that river, flowing through all time — 
Over the parched and melancholy waste 
Of lapsed humanity, pursuing still 
Interminable meanderings, like that stream 
Which followed Israel in the wilderness — 
Whence all the blessed charities of life ; 
The bloom, and beauty, and the bliss of earth ; 
All those refreshing foretastes of supreme 
Immortal satisfactions found in home. 

* Dedicated to the Ladies of the Newark Orphan Asylum. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 295 

True to the native instincts of her heart, 
She weeps with iliose that weep. Around the couch 
Of sickness, waits and watches without rest, 
A weary while, supporting, O how tenderly! 
With hands how soft beneath the aching head ! 
Applying still the lenitives of pain, 
While ever and anon she upward looks 
In silent supplication heard in heaven. 

Sustaining various names, see, where she moves, 
Light of the household ! sister, daughter, Vvfife, 
Or mother, it may be, on whose soft breast, 
Safe sheltered once we lay in infanc}'. 
Listening the beatings of that heart which felt 
The might}' hunger of a great desire, 
Longings unutterable — expressed in tears, 
Dumb show of loving looks, and kisses sweet, 
Or with clasped hands upraised in prayer — 
For her babe's happiness in future years. 

Ah me ! how dire tlie change, Avhen wintry death 
Freezes the fountain, whence the nursling draws 
Its sustenance, and quenches the dear flame 
That warmed it into being. Sad thy lot, 



296 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Poor helpless innocent ! cast out to bide 
Th' uncertain charity of stranger-hands ; 
Oft-times to pine and perish ; nevermore 
To feel the pressure of a mother's lips, 
Or greet the sunshine of her smiling eyes, 
Or hear the heavenly music of her voice 
Beside the cradle singing thee to rest. 

He, who provides for ravens when they cry, 
Has ears to hear the sad and piteous wail 
Of desolate orphanage, and sends swift help, 
Fanning the fires of Christian love and zeal, 
Where they burn purest, deep in Woman's breast. 

Under those heavenly promptings, lo ! she founds 
Asylums ; gathers lorn and friendless ones ; 
With affluence of sympathy, dries up 
The falling tear, and ministers relief. 
Ye mothers of the motherless ! your work of love 
Shall not go unrewarded. Even now. 
Seeing the blessed fruit of pious toil. 
Have ye not ample recompense ? Go on, 
Guiding, as heretofore, your little tliock 
To greenest pastures, feeding them with words 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 297 

Of heavenly truth and wisdom, making wise 

Unto salvation, till you hear at length, 

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, sung 

Perfected praise to your Redeemer! These thus turned 

To righteousness, shall in the firmament 

Of glory shine, as star-writ characters, 

To endless ages publishing your fame — 

Vicegerents here of God's beneficence, 

Dispensers of His grace to deathless souls, 

December 18, 1S57. 



STREAMLET AND POOL 

FAR away, in yonder hill, 
See that little silver Ril!, 
With its tinkling, twinkling feet, 
Tripping onward, fair as fleet, 
Happy as the day is long. 
Humming to itself a song, 



298 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

While it hastens to deliver 
Its small tribute to the River ! 

Soon a stagnant Pool it passes, 
Which the Streamlet thus addresses : 
"Whither Streamlet, are you going?" 
"I am to the River flowing. 
There the water of my cup, 
Which God gave, to render up." 
" Ah !" exclaims the sordid Pool, 
" You're a thoughtless, spendthrift fool ; 
Ere summer's gone, that cup you'll want, 
Remember spring-rains have been scant." 
"Well," said the Rill, as on it ran, 
"I'll do, meanwhile, the good I can ; 
If I am destined soon to die, 
It forms another reason, why 
My moments should not run to waste, 
Why I should make the greater haste." 
The Pool smiled infinite disdain. 
And strove to husband and retain 
Each drop of water gathered there, 
Deeming it had not one to spare. 



MI S CELL A N EO US FOE MS . 299 

Ere long mid-summer's ardent heat 
Upon the Rill began to beat ; 
But trees, whose roots it watered, spread 
Their sheltering branches overhead, 
Through which the friendly sunshine smiled, 
Tempering its fierceness to the Child. 
The birds came tliere to sip and sing; 
The flowers hard b)^ were seen to spring, 
Shedding their odors ; near its banks 
Stood grateful cattle, looking thanks ; 
The husbandman's delighted gaze 
Pursued the wandering watery maze. 
Through fields and meadows, clearly seen, 
Traced by a line of fresher green : 
Blessing and blessed of all, it glides 
Thither where'er its Maker guides. 

What of the prudent Pool, left yonder, 
So close and miserly, I wonder ? 
Alas ! this stagnant grew, meanwhile. 
More pestilential, and more vile. 
The thirsty cattle, sometihies, used 
To stoop to drink, then straight refused ; 



300 MISCE LLA NE O U S POEMS. 

The vagrant breeze, its way once missed, 

And, by mistake, its surface kissed. 

But siiuddering, chilled, and sick, and faint, 

It shrunk away, but caught the taint. 

And to the people living near. 

Bore mortal agues ; struck with fear, 

The dwellers all the region quit ; 

The very frogs their venom spit, 

And fled the green and loathsome curse, 

That day by day grew worse and worse. 

Till Heaven, in love, with hotter breath 

Smote it, and dried this source of death. 

But did the Rill itself exhaust? 
O, no ! not so, it was not lost. 
E'en when its cup it emptied free. 
And the Flood bore it to the Sea. 
The Sea received it, and the while. 
In answer to the Sun's warm smile, 
Sent vapory incense up to form 
The Clouds, the Chariots of the Storm : 
The courser Winds, these wait to bear 
Far distant to yon mountain, where 
Is found the Streamlet's fountain-head, 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 301 

And there the watery blessing's shed. 
The cup it gave, it does not lack, 
For lo ! the same comes brimming back ; 
Thougli always giving, full supplies 
Again come pouring from the skies ; 
Though constant in its generous course, 
Heaven-fed, it fails not at its source. 

What is the moral, reader, say? 
'Tis obvious as the light of day : 
It is to give, and not to hoard. 
As reads the Evangel of the Lord, 
Give, and to you, too, shall be given ! 
Free be your gifts, as those of Heaven ! 
Give, and from giving never cease ! 
To give is often to increase ; 
While giving naught, or niggardly, 
Directly tends to poverty. 



[The above improvised versification of the Streamlet and Pool originally ap- 
peared in the Annual Report of the Newark Protestant Foster Home for 1854 ; 
and the Annive7-sa7-y Hymns which follow, written by request for the use of the 
Children, were published from year to year in connection with the Reports of the 
Society.] 



302 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



ANNIVERSARY H Y M N S .* 
I. 

THOU God of Love ! Thy glories bright 
The universe adorn ; 
We see Thee in the stars of night, 
The splendors of the morn. 

From east to west, from south to north, 

Thou dost in all appear ; 
But art supremely shadowed forth 

In Charity sincere. 

Sweet Charity, divinest grace 

Inclusive of the rest. 
Pictures Thine image in the face, 

And glorifies the breast. 

Since it was this once caused to bleed 

Incarnate Deity, 
To minister to suffering need, 

Is to resemble Thee. 

* Sung by the Children of the " Protestant Foster Home.'' 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. S^S 

To be the channels of Th}^ love, 

Thine almoners of good, 
When gifts descending from above 

Incite to gratitude, 

Is highest honor, highest bliss — 

And such do they secure 
Whose pious hands have founded this 

Asylum for the poor ; 

Where find relief, those early brought 

Beneath affliction's rod ; 
And helpless orphanage is taught 

The fatherhood of God. 

Thou wilt reward those seeking none, 

And make them wond'ring see 
That what they to the least have done 

Was done alike to Thee. 

1851. 



304 MISCELLA NEOU S POEM S. 



II. 



THE hours and days, that flee so fast, 
Have brought another season round ; 
Ah ! since we here assembled last. 

How many sleep beneath the ground ! 

We live — of all our little band 

Not one hath felt Death's icy touch ; 

Meet is it then, we bless Thy hand, 
O God ! to whom we owe so much. 

Each night we laid us down and slept, 
Serenely pillowed on Thy breast ; 

And in Thy safe embrace were kept 
Through all the hours of peaceful rest. 

Then when the pleasant morning broke, 
And filled the world with welcome light, 

We from refreshing slumber woke. 
To be Thy tender care till night. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 305 

No moment of the year, but brought 

Some blessing on its rapid wings, 
And seasons, with their changes, wrought 

To crown our lives with needful things. 

O how unlike our former lot ! 

This smiling Home, with friends so kind, 
And truth to consecrate the spot. 

And banish darkness from the mind. 

O fruit of pious toil and pain ! 

O love, whose root shall ne'er decay ! 
Your powerful fragrance shall remain, 

When ages shall have passed away. 

O'er proudest deeds shall darkness roll ; 

But every action done in Time, 
To benefit a human soul, 

Shall grow forever more sublime. 

1852. 



3o6 M I SCELLA NEOU S POEM S. 



III. 

E come, O God, with swellins^ hearts, 
And eyelids filled with grateful tears, 
To sing Thy love which ne'er departs, 
Nor changes through successive years. 

Our days glide on in constant peace. 
While gen'rous hands the means afford 

To train us up to make increase 

In the dear knovvledge of tlie Lord. 

The shadow of that dread eclipse, 
Which darken'd all our former days, 

Thou hast withdrawn, and tuned our lips 
To warble melodies of praise. 

Sweet promises of heavenly joy 

We learn to speak with infant breath, 

And prize the grace that can destroy 
The sting and bitterness of death. 
1853. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 307 

IV. 

A BEAUTIFUL and happy Home, 
STS^ Enough of raiment, food and fire, 
The light of Hfe upon our path, 

O God, what more could we desire ! 

How quietly we sleep at night ! 

What peace the radiant morning brings ! 
Contented with our humble lot. 

We need not envy that of kings. 

The fields look green and glad for us ; 

The sweet stars nightly bless our eyes ; 
The day's first kiss and last, we share, 

Its golden pomp and purple dyes. 

The gentle zephyrs bring and breathe 
Delicious perfumes from the flowers 

Of rich men's gardens, far and near, 

Whose sweets are theirs no more than ours. 

How vast, O God, the thanks we owe ! 

Thy overflowing goodness such. 
We scarcely dare to ask for more — 

We have not merited so much. 
1854- 



3o8 M I SCELLA N EO U S POEM S. 



V. 

'N OD of all, above and under, 
God of angels and of men ! 
All things praise Thee, Thine the Thunder 

And the echoing Hills, Amen ! 
Thine the worship of tlie Mountains ; 

Thine the homage of the Plain ; 
Thine the singing of the Fountains ; 

Thine the chorus of the Main. 

Now while Heaven and Earth rejoices, 

God of heat, and God of cold ! 
With the Tempest tune our voices, 

Hymning mercies new and old : 
We would praise Thee, praise is comely, 

And an ever new delight ; 
Lay our offerings, mean and homely. 

On Thine altar morn and night. 

Sounding sweetly down the ages, 

Thy forgiving voice is heard, 
Coming from the open pages 

Of the Volume of Thy Word : 



M I SCELLAjYEOU S POEMS. 309 

For Thy love which chan^^eth never, 

For Thy mere}' to the race, 
Blessed be Thy name forever, 

God of truth, and God of grace ! 



VI. 

WE praise, we magnify, O Lord ! 
As little children can. 
That wondrous love which brought Thee down 
To die for sinful man. 

While here on earth, Thou didst not frown. 

And bid them to depart, 
When mothers brought their children near. 

But took them to Thy heart. 

Encouraged by Thy voice and smile, 

We toward Thy bosom press ; 
Q, lay Thy hands upon our heads, 

And mercifully bless ! 

Help us to sing, dear Lord ! we feel 

That silence would be wrong. 
Now every bird, with rapture stirred, 

Is praising Thee in song. 



\ 



310 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



VII. 

THERE is an Eye, behind the sky, 
That loolcs on me alway ; 
There is an Ear, to my Hps near, 
Let m.e be where I may. 

That Eye doth mark, what in the dark 

I secretly contrive ; 
That Ear takes in each word of sin 

Of every child alive. 

The act unclean, by that Eye seen, 

May never be forgiven ; 
The shameful word, by that Ear heard, 

May bar the gates of heaven. 

Let me beware, then, how I dare. 

At any time or place. 
Blaspheme and lie, with God so nigh, 

And sin before His face. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 3" 



VIII. 

'TXT" HO made this beauteous world ? 

Who clothed with flowers the sod? 
Bedecked the firmament with stars? 
Jesus, the Son of God. 

Who came from heaven to earth ? 

Alone, the wine-press trod 
To save our guilty souls from death ? 

Jesus, the Son of God. 

Who sends the Spirit down, 

And sheds His love abroad 
In mortal hearts to make them His ? 

Jesus, the Son of God. 

Who shall the fates of men 

Determine by His nod. 
Exalt to heaven, or sink to hell ? 

Jesus, the Son of God. 



312 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Who little children bade . 

To come to Him, unawed ? 
Embraced and blessed them one by one? 

Jesus, the Son of God. 

Let men and angels sing, 

And infant voices laud 
Him, Maker, Saviour, Quickener, Judge, 

Jesus, the Son of God. 



THE APPEAL.* 

IN Spring, the trees put forth, 
And all is bud and bloom ; 
And youthful hearts can scarcely make 
For joy sufficient room. 

The glory of the sun 

Makes Summer in the grove ; 
And manhood's pulse beats high and strong 

With happiness and love. 

* Made in behalf of the " Home for Aged Women." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. ^ 3U 

When, afterwards, succeeds 

The ripeness of the Fall ; 
The gathered fruit that fills the barns 

Makes glad the hearts of all. 

O weary hearts and old. 

That soon shall be at rest ! 
What power can warm the frost of age 

And Winter of the breast ! 

The softest breeze that blew 

Once fluttered all your leaves ; 
But now among your leafless boughs 

The piercing north-wind grieves. 

To be both poor and old, 

What lot can be more hard ? 
O Christian Pity ! lend your aid, 

And Heaven shall vou reward. 



3^4 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

DEDICATION HYMNS, Etc. 

I.* 

LO ! everywhere through boundless space 
Thy being spreads, yet, if Thou wilt, 
Thou, Lord ! canst enter here, and grace 
This House our feeble hands have built. 

O vast, O everliving Mind ! 

A thousand years are naught to Thee, 
Yet Thou, the Eternal One, dost find 

In moments room enough to be. 

Most sacred, solemn, and sublime 
The favored spot and season, when 

Thou, gathered from all space and time, 
Dost condescend to dwell with men. 

The covering heavens sweet influence shed, 
And souls are glad like those above, 

While softly floats o'er every head 
The streaming banner of Thy love. 

♦ Sung at the Dedication of the Central Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J. 



M I SCELLANEOU S POEMS. 315 

O, it is comely and thrice fit, 

That praise should be our one employ, 

While at this board of grace we sit, 
Clothed in the radiant vest of joy. 

Be harps to hallelujah set ! 

And voices tuned to hymns of laud 
And soaring harmonies, and let 

The diapason close in God ! 



II.* 

TO build. Great God ! to Thee 
Is far beyond our powers ; 
The heaven of heavens Thy temple is, 
And wilt Thou stoop to ours ? 

Dear Lord ! Thou wilt, and take 
More pleasure in its stones, 

Than all the pride of palaces. 
And vanity of thrones. 

' Sung at the Dedication of the First Baptist Church of Newarli, N. J. 



3^6 MI SCELLA N EOU S POEMS . 

Upon its walls and towers, 

Upon its roof and floor, 
O'er all its gates wilt write Thy name, 

To magnify it more. 

Where only two are met, 

Thyself, the Glorious Third, 

With stately steppings in their midst, 
Wilt verify Thy word. 

O, bow the heavens to-day, 
Hosannas shall Thee greet ! 

These courts the consecration wait 
Of Thy descending feet. 



III. 



("^HOSEN and chief and consecrate, 
J O Corner Stone ! fulfill the fate 
Ordained for Thee before the birth 
And genesis of heaven and earth. 

To this high honor God exalts. 
Because His purpose never halts ; 
Nor are Thy claims, august and proud. 
E'en by the builders disallowed. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 317 

Leap, then, to Tliine appointed place, 
Here in this rising Temple's base. 
That long its sacred walls may stand 
Established, beautiful and grand ! 

O Thou, who art that Living Stone, 
Elect and precious and alone, 
In Zion laid ! grant we may be 
Built up a Spiritual House in Thee. 



IV.* 

""pXlVINE, Eternal Word, 
-■— ^ Who makest sucklings wise ! 
The Alphabet of heavenly lore ! 
The Primer of the skies ! 

Our Letters thus to be. 

Thou didst from heaven descend, 

Alpha, Omega, First and Last, 
Beginning and the End ! 

*Sunff at the Laying of the Corner-stone of the I'cddie Institute, HishtiJtown, N. J. 



316 MISCELLANEO U S POEMS. 

Like children we would sit, 

Jesus, at Thy dear feet, 
And learn of Thee the rudiments. 

So simple and so sweet. 

Thou, Christ, art very God ! 

Once taught Thy name to spell, 
Delighted we decipher it 

On all Thy works as well. 

In Thee, in Thee, we find 

The key that all unlocks ; 
The science of tlie starry heavens, 

The writing on the rocks. 

To-day, we consecrate. 

To make Thy name adored, 

A chosen plot of ground to be 
A garden of the Lord. 

Let every noxious weed, 

Be trodden under foot ! 
That, when Thou comest. Thou may'st find 

Here only wholesome fruit. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 319 

To Thee, the Corner Stone 

We lay, we build the Wall, 
And when it ceases to be Thine, 

Then let the Building fall ! 

v.* 

OTHOU who art enthroned above I 
Thy purposes of grace and love, 
With sure and never pausing feet, 
The rolling centuries complete. 

Each moment of the passing hour 
Is full of majesty and power. 
And executes Thy high behests 
As on Eternity it rests. 

Thou on this mountain-top didst cast 
Of corn a handful, in the past, 
And now hast made, by rain and sun, 
Its fruit to shake like Lebanon. 

To-day, 'tis meet that we record 
And sing the goodness of the Lord ; 

* Sung at the Quarto-Centennial Anniversary of the Fifth Baptist Church, 
Newark, N.J. 



320 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Be this the burden of our song, 

Thou out of weakness hast made strong. 

For published grace, for souls renewed, 
We owe eternal gratitude : 
Thy praise shall here employ our breath, 
And on beyond the gates of death. 
March 26, 1880. 

VI.* 

ALL generations, God of grace, 
Have had in Thee their dwelling-place ! 
For backward view how sweet to climb 
The towering Pisgah of our time. 

We trace the rivers in their course. 
Far upward to tlieir trickling source ; 
We mark the spot where once had birth 
The tree whose boughs reach o'er the earth. 

We see the scattered seeds of good, 
Become a fruitful mighty wood ; 
The corn that filled the sower's hand, 
Now multiplied to feed the land. 

* Written by request for the Robert Raikes' Centennial Sunday School Anni- 
versary in London. ' 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.. 

What lias God wrought ! we wondering say, 
As we look backward from to-day ; 
See, through the mist of grateful tears. 
The harvest of a Hundred Years. 

April 15, 1880. 



VII.* 

AWAKE, my soul, from guilty slumber! 
-/TA- Arise, thy warfare now begin ! 
Shake off whatever doth encumber, 

And break the fetters of thy sin 1 

And break the fetters of thy sin ! 
Beneath thy feet the evil trample ! 

Expel the tyrants of the breast ! 

Give to the enemy no rest ! 
If thou art weak, God's strength is ample. 

To arms ! to arms ! be brave ! 

Determine to be free ! 
Fight on ! fight on ! till gracious Heaven 

Shall give thee victory ! 

♦ Tune—" Marseilles Hymn." 



322 MI SCELLA NEO U S POEM S. 

Sweet Liberty I divine in beauty ! 

Dear radiant Daugliter of the Slcies ! 
Whose other names are Love and Duty — 

Restore Earth's long lost Paradise ! 

Restore Earth's long lost Paradise ! 
Assist and animate endeavor, 

Whilst 'gainst the dark infernal towers, 

'Gainst principalities and powers, 
We battle wage and fight forever. 

To arms ! to arms ! be brave ! 

To make the whole world free. 
Fight on ! fight on ! our Captain, Christ, 

Shall give us victory. 

vin. 

CHRIST crucified ! amazing theme ! 
I see, beneath that mean disguise, 
Th' undoubted peer of God Supreme, 
Th' awful Monarch of the Skies ! 

No malefactor He, whose gore 

Drips from the wood, and dyes the sod ; 

Gashed, pierced, and bleeding, I adore. 
The meek and patient Son of God ! 



MI SCELLANEOUS POEMS. m 

O Friend Divine ! I hear those oToans, 

The shuddering universe appall ! 
The pleading pity of those tones 

Which on m}^ head forgiveness call ! 

If I such matchless grace forget, 

This costly charity of Heaven, 
Then may I bear th' uncanceled debt, 

And die, and never be forgiven ! 

EVER, my Lord, with Thee, 
Ever with Thee ! 
Through all eternity 

Thy face to see ! 
I count this heaven, to be 
Ever, my Lord, with Thee, 
Ever with Thee ! 

Fair is Jerusalem, 

All of pure gold. 
Garnished with many a gem 

Of worth untold : 

* Tune—" Nearer, My God, to Thee." 



324 M I SCELLANEO'U S POEMS. 

I only ask, to be 
Ever, my Lord, with Thee, 
Ever with Thee ! 

No curse is there, no night, 

No grief, no fear ; 
Thy smile fills heaven with lighL 

Dries every tear : 
What rapture, there to be 
Ever, my Lord, with Thee, 

Ever with Thee ! 



X. 



WHEN Jesus speaks, so sweet the sound, 
The harps of heaven are hushed to hear, 
And all His words go circling round, 
From lip to lip and ear to ear. 



But wondering seraph never heard, 

In all the mighty years of heaven, 
Music so sweet as that dear word, 
" Good cheer ! thy sins are all forgiven. ' 



MI SCELLA NEO us POEMS. 3^5 

Sinners of earth, redeemed by blood, 

How leaped your hearts, when first ye knew 

Th' amazing grace, and understood 
The gift of pardon was for you ! 

Adopted now, with spirits awed. 

Knowing- your privilege unpriced. 
Ye claim the fatherhood of God 

And brotherhood of Jesus Christ. 

XL* 
"TTT^HO are happy, truly happy, 

Do you seek to know ? 
Ask the Master, He will tell you 
Who are so. 

Shall the haughty. Lord ! the gladness 
Of Thy kingdom gain ? 
" Blessed are the poor in spirit. 
They shall reign." 

Are the sons of pleasure happy, 
Dead to highest needs? 
"They who mourn are blessed, seeing 
Joy succeeds. " 

♦Tu.NE— " Art thou weary ? art thou languid ?" 



326 MISCELLA NEO US POEM S. 

Are the quick of quarrel happy, 
Filled witli pride of birth ? 
" Blessed are the meek, the future 
Heirs of earth." 

Who are they, who, having nothing, 
Shall be filled, no less ? 
" They whose hunger and whose thirst is 
Righteousness." 

Are the unforgiving happy, 
" Cruel to condemn ? 
Who show mercy, shall have mercy 
Shown to them." 

Shall the sensual be happy, 
In eternity ? 
" Blessed are the pure, they only 
God shall see." 

Have they filial rights and honors 
Whose delight is war? 
" Nay ! peacemakers God's beloved 
Children are." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 327 

XII. 

THE memory of Jesus' Name 
Is past expression sweet : 
At each dear mention hearts aflame 
With quicker pulses beat ! 

But sweet above all sweetest things 

Creation can afford, 
That sweetness which His presence brings, 

The vision of tlie Lord. 

Sweeter than His dear Name is naught ; 

None worthier of laud, 
Was ever sung, or heard, or thought, 

Than Jesus, Son of God. 

Thou hope, to those of contrite heart ! 

To those who ask, how kind ! 
To those who seek, how good Thou art ! 

But what to them who find ? 

No heart is able to conceive, 

Nor tongue, nor pen express ; 
Who tries it only can believe 

How choice that blessedness ! 



328 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

XIII. 

OTHE unsearchable riches of Christ ! 
Wondrous, mysterious treasure, 
Riches of wisdom past finding out, 
Riches of grace without measure. 

O the unsearchable riches of Christ I 
Riches of love and salvation. 

Riches of glory unspeakably bright, 
Shaming the starry creation. 

O the unsearchable riches of Christ! 

Price of an infinite pardon, 
Payment in full of the debt of the race. 

Forfeit incurred in the garden. 

O the unsearchable riches of Christ ! 

Title to all things possessing, 
Worthy the Lamb, let us sing, to receive 

Riches, and honor and blessing. 



MISCELLANEO U S POEM S. 329 



MISSIONARY HYMNS.* 



I SING the Shepherd of the sheep, 
Who, for the love He bore the fold, 
Did wade through sorrows dark and deep, 
And freely give His life of old. 

I sing the love, so strange, so sweet. 
That sought the lost until it found, 

With aching heart, and bleeding feet, 
And flowing tears that wet the ground. 

I sing the goodness of our God, 

The patient pity and the grace 
That left no dreadful path untrod 

To seek and save the human race. 

Great Shepherd of the nations ! Thou, 

Bishop of souls, go forth to find 
Thy scattered flock ! O, gather now 

The straying millions of mankind ! 

* The most, if not all, of the Hymns under tliis head were written by request for 
a little manual of hymns, original and selected, published two years since under 
the title of " Mission Band Hymnal." 



33<^ MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



ir. 

npHEY err who think that God is far, 
-*- That I must climb from star to star 
Through mighty intervals of space, 
To reach His awful dwelling-place. 

I put the shoes from off my feet, 
I go not forth my God to meet, 
For God is everywhere, and here, 
Here in this place to make it dear. 

Long time I groped and could not find. 
For light is darkness to the blind ; 
How sweet to feel, now He is found, 
His everlasting arms around ! 

Upon his bosom thus to rest, 
I cannot ask to be more blest ; 
To know my sins are all forgiven 
For Jesus' sake, O, this is heaven ! 

While I love Him and he loves me, 
I care no other heaven to see ; 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. IZ'^ 

And if there be some higher bliss, 
I am content while I have this. 

And there are those beyond the wave 
Whom Christ came down on earth to save : 
O, let me haste to make it known, 
My God and Saviour is their own. 



III. 

SAVIOUR of the human race ! 
Magnify Thy power and grace ; 
Let Thy kingdom come, we pray, 
Let it come without delay ; 
Cast down every rival throne. 
And instead set up Thine own. 

Since Thy kingdom is within, 
And the rebel is our sin, 
Let Thine arrows sharp and keen. 
Pierce the enemy unseen ; 
Prince of Peace ! the evil slay 
That prevents Thy rightful sway. 



33^ MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Gird Thy sword upon Thy side, 
O most Mighty One ! and ride 
O'er the prostrate hearts of foes, 
Over all things that oppose ; 
Let Thy banner be unfurled 
High above a conquered world. 



IV* 

O'ER the ocean is wafted the tremulous cry, 
The cry of the heathen in need : 
"We are dying by millions, O, let us not die ! 
Come over and help us, we plead ! 
To famishing souls swiftest succor afford, 

The means of salvation us give ; 
By the might of the Word of the Lord 
We then shall eternally live." 

We hear blended with these far off pleadings of pain, 

The main's multitudinous moan ; 
While th' importunate voice sighs again and again 

Its prayer in varying tone ; 

* Tune— "The Valley of Blessing." 



M ISCELLANEO U S P OEM S. 333 

From many-hued people of different speech, 

The wail o'er the deep finds its way : 
'We are dying, with life within reach, 

Come over and help us, straightway !" 

Who, unmoved, see their brother's deep lack, can 
there dwell 

The love of the Father in such ? 
To whom much is forgiven, 'tis needful and well 

That they in return should love much. 
Let frequent and fast-sailing ships never cease 

To plough. Lord ! the furrowless sea. 
To convey the Evangel of peace. 

Converting the world unto Thee. 



v.* 

"TTXICKED hands, how sad the story ! 
Crucified the Lord of Glory, 
Nailed Him to the accursed tree. 
In Thy side the spear did bury. 
Son of God, and Son of Mary ! 
Murdered One of Calvary ! 

* Tune— "Stabat Mater." 



334 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 

Was there ever known such maHce ? 
Gall of hatred in the chalice 

For Thy lips of love wrung out ; 
Priests with scribes and elders, mocking, 
As they pass, O sight most shocking ! 

Wag their heads, revile and flout. 

Was there. Thine own words to borrow, 
Ever sorrow like Thy sorrow, 

When our sins were on Thee laid ? 
Sorrow, which that cry could waken, 
" Why, My God, am I forsaken ? " 

Never was since worlds were made. 

Never after such dear fashion 

Was there witnessed such compassion : 

Publish ye, who know the grace ! 
Make commanded proclamation 
Of the Gospel of Salvation 

To each creature of the race ! 



M ISCELLAN EOU S POEM S. 335 

VI.* 

THE sweet prophetic Voice 
Tells every wind that blows, 
The desert shall rejoice, 

And blossom as the rose ; 
The wilderness, no longer dumb. 
Exultant sing, The Lord is come ! 

The uncultured wilds, where roams 

The Indian of the West, 
Shall turn to happy homes 

And gardens of the blest ; 
The wilderness, no longer dumb, 
Exultant sing. The Lord is come ! 

The pestilential swamp. 

Where slavery had root, 
Shall, freed from noisome damp. 

Abound in wholesome fruit ; 
The wilderness, no longer dumb. 
Exultant sing. The Lord is come ! 

Hot Afric's barren sands, 

Where men stretch forth to God 

* Tune — " Lenox." 



33^ M ISCELLA NEO U S POEM S. 

Their supplicating hands, 

Shall change to verdant sod ; 
The wilderness, no longer dumb. 
Exultant sing, The Lord is come I 

Asia, the dwelling-place 
Of dragons, shall be clad 

With plants and flowers of grace, 
And all her wastes be glad ; 

The wilderness, no longer dumb, 

Exultant sing. The Lord is come ! 

And Europe's unfenced grounds, 
Where thorns and briars grow, 

Shall leap through all her bounds — 
A paradise below ; 

The wilderness, no longer dumb. 

Exultant sing. The Lord is come ! 

Dear day of God, make haste ! 

Let not the time be long 
When sin no more shall waste, 

No more shall triumph wrong; 
And earth redeemed, no longer dumb. 
Exultant sing. The Lord is come ! 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 337 



VII.* 

TE messengers of God to men, 
Now on the deep sea tossing, 
Naught shall you hurt, God shall avert 

The dangers of the crossing : 
Chorus. — Nothing to fear have ye, howe'er 
Loud ocean roars and ravens ; 
Let what winds blow, be glad to know, 
All ports are happy havens ! 

The ship is safe, with Christ ye sail, 

And ye are bearing orders ; 
All places lie beneath one sky. 

Close to the heavenly borders : — Cho. 

God at the helm to guide the bark, 

There is no room for error ; 
Whom He has sent should be content, 

Nor yield to doubt nor terror : — Cho. 

* Tune — "The Shining Shore." 



338 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



Vlfl.* 

HERE are partings and painful farewells, 
And the sundering of tenderest ties ; 
In that heavenly land where He dwells, 
God shall wipe away tears from all eyes. 

Chorus. — " In the sweet by and by. 

We shall meet on that beautiful shore." 

Here the pilgrim can scarcely discern 
The reward for the tears that he sheds ; 

But the ransomed with songs shall return 
With perpetual joy on their heads. — Cho. 

Guide the ships which Thy servants convey, 
Gracious Lord, o'er the turbulent foam ! 

Bless their labors, be with them alway. 

Till they reach the blest threshold of Home! — Cho. 

*TuNE — "The Sweet By and By." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 339 



IX. 



FROM Thee, begetting sure conviction, 
Sound out, O risen Lord ! always, 
Those faithful words of valediction, 
" Lo ! I am with you all the days." 

What things shall happen on the morrow. 

Thou kindly hidest from our gaze ; 
But tellest us in joy or sorrow, 
" Lo ! I am with you all the days." 

When round our head the tempest rages. 

And sink our feet in miry ways, 
Thy voice comes floating down the ages, 
" Lo ! I am with you all the days." 

O Thou, who art our life and meetness, 
Not death shall daunt us nor amaze. 
Hearing those words of power and sweetness, 
" Lo ! I am with you all the days." 



340 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 



X* 



GRACIOUS Lord ! who out of darkness 
Didst command the light to shine, 
In the sinful soul and blinded, 

Pour the rays of truth divine ! 
Wilfully their eyelids closing, 

Men have eyes but naught perceive, 
Therefore is the Gospel hidden, 
Therefore do they not believe. 

Utter Thy creative fiat ! 

Say once more, Let there be light ! 
Sun of Righteousness, arising, 

Chase away the shades of night. 
Once more, at the new creation, 

Let the stars of morning sing, 
And the sons of God with shoutings 

Make the heavenly arches ring. 

*Ti;ne — " Guidance," Air from Flotow. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 341 

XL* 

OUT the mouths of babes and sucklings, 
Thou canst perfect praise to Thee ! 
Wilt thou not accept the worship, 
Humbly rendered, Lord, by me, 
Even me ? 

Things that to the wise are hidden. 

Children's eyes are made to see ; 
Thee to know is life eternal, 

O, reveal Thyself to me. 

Even me ! 

Thou hast given me power of loving, 

Give me power of serving Thee, 
Is there not some humble service 

Which can now be done by me, 
. Even me ? 

Hands and feet should ne'er grow weary 
When employed, dear Lord ! for Thee ; 

Tongue should never cease the telling 
Of Thy grace who diedst for me. 
Even me. 

♦Tune — "Even Me." 



23 



342 MISCELLANEO US POEMS. 

Infant mouths need not be silent, 
Stammering lips can publish Thee, 

Sound Th}^ name o'er land and ocean, 
Be it sounded, Lord, by me, 

Even me ! 

XII.* 

THE Lord is my Shepherd, He cares for the sheep, 
From danger He guards me, awake and asleep. 
He makes me lie down in green pastures, and leads 
Beside the still waters that gladden the meads. 

Astray, He restores me, and does not forsake, 

He guides in right paths for His blessed name's sake. 

The valley and shadow of death I'll not fear, 

My Shepherd is with me, His rod and staff cheer. 

He spreads me a feast in the face of my foes, 
With oil He anoints me, my cup overflows, 
His grace will not fail me, the hand of His love 
Will feed me, and lead me to pastures above. 

O Heavenly Shepherd ! most loving and good. 
Who boughtest Thy sheep with the price of Thy blood, 
Look clown on earth's millions, now far from the fold, 
Astray on the mountains, and lost in the wold ! 

* Tune — " Flow gently, sweet Afton." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 343 

XIII.* 

EVERYWHERE the groves are ringing, 
In and out the warblers pass, 
Unseen insects join in singing 

Holy anthems from the grass. 
Chorus. — God who made us, downward gazes 
On His creatures great and small, 
Condescends to hear the praises 
Of the meanest of them all. 

Little is the bee that hovers. 

With its tiny wings and feet, 
Lighting not till it discovers 

Where the blossom hides its sweet. — Cho. 

As in mountain lake is given 

Image of the sky, we view 
The same blessed arch of heaven 

Mirrored in a drop of dew. — Cho. 

Therefore, O our God and Father ! 

Little children though we be. 
We around Thy throne would gather, 

Love and serve and worship Thee. — Cho 

*Tlnf. — " Hark ! tlie morning bells are ringing." 



344 MISCELLA NEOU S POEMS. 

We are sinful and unholy, 
Make the turbid waters clear, 

That they may reflect Thee, solely, 
And display Thy likeness here. — Cho. 

XIV.* 

LOVE is standing at the door, 
Stands there || knocking |j evermore, 
How much longer must He wait, 
Vainly || pleading! at the gate ? 
II Sinful soul and hard, || 
Let the portal be unbarred ! 
Else, O Saviour, force Thy way, 
And what 's || hostile || to Thee, slay ! 

Thou dost come with bleeding feet. 
Dost with II wounded || hands entreat ; 
Thou dost make to all the race 
A free || proffer || of Thy grace. 
II Sinful soul and hard, || 
Let the portal be unbarred ! 
Else, O Saviour, force Thy way. 
And what 's || hostile || to Thee, slay ! 

* Tune, " Saviour more than life to me." 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 345 



ODE TO COLD WATER. 

OFAIR is the virgin Lymph, fresh from the fountain, 
Sleeping in crystal wells, 

Leaping in shady dells, 
Or issuing clear from the womb of the mountain, 
Sky-mated, related, Earth's holiest Daughter ! 

Not the hot kiss of wine, 

Is half so divine, 
As the sip of thy lip, inspiring Cold Water ! 
As chaste as the snows on the sky-piercing Alpine top — 

Now sparkling in dews. 

Now wearing the hues 
Of the rainbow, born of the ray and the rain-drop ; 
In health, and in sickness, all seasons, all weather, 
Men may quaff thee, and laugh, and be happy together. 

O see, how all Nature claps hands and rejoices ! 
What greenness and gladness. 
For brownness and sadness ! 

What music and mirth from infinite voices ! 

Herds lowing, cocks crowing, ten thousand birds singing, 



346 MI SCELLAN EOU S POEMS. 

Sweet murmuring rills, 

And splashings of mills, 
And foaming cascades, gems and jewels upflinging ; 
The winds, all the leaves from their sick slumbers waking, 

With whispers and kisses. 

And breathings of blisses. 
From the blooms all perfumes on the buxom airshaking ; 
New beauty returning to grass, tree and flower, 
So soon as the thirsty earth drinks in the shower. 

The great gift of God, and the joy of Creation — 

As needful as air, 

Like it, everywhere. 
As essential, potential, its blest operation — 
The innocent source of health and hilarity ; 

The friend of long life. 

The foe of all strife, 
The pledge of good fellowship, friendship and charity, 
Is Water, pure WATER — it makes the heart gladder 

Than wine, the fierce balker. 

The merciless mocker, 
That bites like the serpent, and stings like the adder ; 
For devil-born revel, and hollow brief laughter. 
Have gnashings of teeth, and wailings hereafter. 



MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 347 

THE LORD'S PRAYER. 

A BBA, Father, God of Love, 
Jl\. Hallowed be Thy name by all 
In the height of heaven above. 

And on this terrestrial ball ! 
May Thy kingdom come in power, 

Subjugating all to Thee ; 
Other kingdoms Thine devour 

That there only one may be ! 

May Thy righteous will be done 

By the fallen race of man ! 
Back to old allegiance won, 

Serving Thee as angels can. 
Who have kept their first estate, 

And are strong and swift of wing, 
Always eager and elate, 

Quick to bear and quick to bring. 

Give our bodies needful food. 
Day by day their wants supply. 

And withhold not heavenly food 
Lest our starving spirits die ! 



348 MISCELLANEO U S POEM S. 

Man lives not by bread alone ; 

Should Thy blessing not attend, 
Bread 's no better than a stone, 

Soon our mortal lives would end. 

Debts to law and justice due, 

Freely cancel and forgive ! 
Our revengeful souls renew 

That we may not die but live ! 
Since, if we match not the grace 

Whereby Thou our sin dost blot, 
Doubtful will be left the case 

Whether Thou forgiv'st or not. 

For that we are weak and frail. 

Lead us not where danger lies ! 
If the enemy assail. 

Let it not be a surprise ! 
In the dark and dreadful hour, 

From the Evil One deliver. 
For the Kingdom 's Thine and power 

In doxologies forever. Amen ! 



LATIN HYMNS WITH ORIGINAL TRANSLA- 
TIONS. By Abraham Coles, M. D., LL. D. 
D. Appleton and Company, New York. 

In Four Parts, namely : 

Dies Ir.e in Thirteen Original Versions. Fifth 
Edition, pp. i lo. 

Stacat Mater (dolorosa). "The Sorrows of Mary." 
Second Edition, pp. 37. 

Stabat Mater (speciosa). " The Joys of Mary." pp. 25. 

Old Gems in New Settings. Being additional Selec- 
tions from Mediaeval Hymnology. pp. 77. 

All bound together, forming one elegantly printed 
volume, with Biographical and Critical Prefaces, Illus- 
trations, Music, &c. Crown 8vo. pp. 249. 

By the same Author 

THE EVANGEL IN VERSE. One elegant volume. 
Crown 8vo. pp. 386. 
The Illustrations, twenty-eight in number, form of 
themselves a Life of Christ as eloquently told by the 
great Painters. They are "Artotype" copies of first- 
class Engravings, admirably preserving not only every 
line of grace found in the originals, but fixing a beauty 
never to fade^ — executed by E. Bierstadt, brother of the 
distinguished landscape painter. 

Also 

THE MICROCOSM* AND OTHER POEMS. Beauti- 
fully Illustrated. Crown 8vo. pp. 348. 

* Second Edition. 



NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 

" We commend the volume (Dies Ir/e, /« Thirteen Original Vei- 
siojis) as one of great interest, and an admirable tribute from Ameri- 
can scholarship and poetic taste to the supreme nobility of the original 
poem. Dr. Coles has shown a fine appreciation of the spirit and 
rhythmic movement of the Hymn, as well as unusual command of 
language and rhyme ; and we much doubt whether any translation of 
the Dies Inc, better than the first of the thirteen, will ever be pro- 
duced in English, except perhaps by himself. ... As to the transla- 
tion of the Hymn, it is perhaps the most difficult task that could be 
undertaken. To render Faust or the Songs of Egmont into fitting 
English numbers, would be easy in comparison. — Kichard Grant 
White {The Albion). 

"The book is a gem both typographically and intrinsically ; beau- 
tifully printed at the ' Riverside Press,' in the loveliest antique type, 
on tinted paper, with liberal margins, embellished with exquisite 
photographs of the great masterpieces of Christian Art, and withal 
elegantly and solidly bound in Matthew's best style, a gentleman-like 
book, suggestive of Christmas and the centre-table ; and its contents 
worthy of their dainty envelope, amply entitling it as well to a place 

on the shelves of the scholar The first two of the Thirteen 

Versions of the Dies Ira- appeared in the ' Newark Daily Advertiser ' 
as long ago as 1S47. They were extensively copied by the press, and 
warmly commended — particularly by the Rev. Drs. James W. Alex- 
ander and W. R. Williams, scholars whose critical acumen and liter- 
ary ability are universally recognized — as being the best of the 
English versions in double rhyme ; and examples of singular success 
in a difficult undertaking, in which many, and of eminent name, had 
been competitors. The eleven other versions are worthy companions 
of those which have received such eminent endorsement. Indeed, 
we are not sure but that the last, which is in the same measure as 
Crashaw's, but in our judgment far superior, will please the general 
■ taste most of all."— AV;', .V. /. Prime, D. D. {Neiv York Obseiiri). 

" There are few versions of the Hymn which will bear to be com- 
pared v.'ith these ; we are surprised that thev are all so well done."" 
William C. Bryant (A'. }'. Evening Post). 

"Dr. Coles has made, we think, the most successful attempt 

at an English translation of the hymn that we have ever seen 

He has done so well that we hope he will try his hand on some of the 
other Latin Hymns. By rendering them in their own metres, and 
with so large a' transfusion of their spirit as characterizes his present 
attempt, he will be doing a real service to the lovers of that kind of 



religious poetry in which neither the religion nor the poetry is left out. 
He has shown that he knows the worth of faithfulness." — yames 
Russell Loivell {Atlantic Monthly'). 

"Of Dr. Coles' remarkable success as respects these particulars 
{namely, faithfulness and variety), no one competent to judge can 
doubt.... For all that enters into a good translation, fidelity to the 
sense of the original, uniform conformity to its tenses, preservation 
of its metrical form without awkwardly inverting, inelegantly abbrevia- 
ting, or violently straining the sense of the words, and the reproduc- 
tion of its vital spirit — for all these qualities Dr. Coles' first translation 
stands, we believe, not only unsurpassed, but unequalled in the Eng- 
lish language." — Christian {Quarterly) Review. 

" Dr. A. Coles has long been known to the literary world as spec- 
ially successful in the translation of Latin Hymns. His renderings 
of the Dies Ine are familiar to many readers. He has now also pre- 
pared a book entitled Old Gems in New Settings, an exquisite volume, 
in which we find the De Conteuiptu Mundi, the Veni Sancte Spintus, 
and other fine old favorites skillfully and gracefully translated. The 
grand hymn or poem of Bernard de Clugny, of which the extracts in 
this book are styled Urbs Ca-lestis Syon, is rendered in a style very 
nearly resembling the original, and gives the reader, who does not 
understand Latin, an excellent idea of the peculiar characteristics of 
the hymn of Bernard. Besides these, we have the Stalmt Mater, with 
a complete history of the noble hymn, and a v'ery fine translation. The 
lovers of old hymns owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Coles for 
the good taste and the thorough appreciation and ability which he 
brings to the work of placing these glorious old songs within reach of 
the modern world. VVe could wish them to become favorites in 
every family, and they will so become in spite of their Latin origin." 
— IVilliain C. Prime {jfournal of Commerce). 

" United with a rare command of language and facility of versifica- 
tion, this is the secret of the eminent success with which the Transla- 
tor has reproduced the solemn litany of the Middle Ages in such a 
variety of forms. If not all of equal excellence, it is hard to decide 
as to their respective merits, so admirably do they embody the tone 
and sentiment of the original in vigorous and impressive verse. The 
essays which precede and follow the Hymn, exhibit the learning and 
the taste of the translator in a most favorable light, and show that an 
antiquary and a poet have not been lost in the study of science and 
the practice of a laborious profession. In addition to the Thirteen 
Versions of Dies Ine, the volume contains translations of the Sfal>at 
Mater, CM's Ca'lestis Syoii, I'eni Creator Spiritus, and other choice 
mediaeval hymns which have been executed with equal unction and 
felicity. 

" We have also a poem by the same author, entitled Tlie Microcosm, 
read before the Medical Society of New Jersey at its Centenary anni- 
versary. It is an ingenious attempt to present the principles of the 



animal economy in a philosophical poem, somewhat after the manner 
of Lucretius, and combining scientific analysis with religious senti- 
ment. In ordinary hands, we should not regard this as a happy, nor 
a safe experiment, but the dexterity with which it has been managed 
by Dr. Coles, illustrates his versatile talent as well as the originality 
of his conceptions." — George Ripley {iVeiu York Tribune^. 

" Dr. Coles has been too long away from a public which has already 
shown itself kindly to him, and we thank him, especially, for this 
book of his own ( The Miovcosm). . . Why should not the wonderful 
make of man — the might and cunning skill that are moulded in him — 
furnish a very choice theme for poetry ? Dr. Coles, accustomed, by 
his profession, to search among and study out these marvels, knowing 
how they are grouped together, what work they do, and how they are 
fitted for it, believes that here is one of the very noblest themes for 
such use, hitherto strangely left alone. This therefore is the occasion 
of his writing Tlie Microcosm. . The Eustachian Tube, and Cerebellum 
and CEsophagus, made into poetry, must have astonished the well- 
informed Medical Faculty of New Jersey, much as a farmer's smoke- 
house and pig-sty and shed would astonish him, if made into a 
picture. And Dr. Coles has really made them into poetry.. ..Tissue 
and organ, and channel, and duct are very skillfully and beautifully 
described, and made to witness to God's goodness : the skin, the 
nerves, the flesh, the heart, the eye, the tongue, the ear, the seeing, 
hearing, speech, light, tears, sleep, music, the blind, the dumb, the 
living mind. Whatever in man is good, and strong, and fine, and 
beautiful, finds place in Dr. Coles' Poem, and is so set forth that the 
man of science and the man who can read and feel the force of good 
thoughts and tuneful words, and knows nothing of anatomy and 
physiology, beside the cheapest axioms of food and sleep, may alike 
enjoy the reading. Whoever has only grovelling notions of man's 
nature, and knows the body only as an instrument of low pleasure and a 
vehicle of pain and punishment, would here learn something better 
of himself and worthier of the answer which he, like holier men, 
must make, at last. Not that all is preaching. The book is, indeed, 
written by a Christian man, to whom his faith in his Redeemer and 
relationship to God are dearer than all other things ; but the blush of 
maiden-love and the conscious glance of the eye ; the deep mother's 
love for the infant nestling in the bosom, and nursing at the breast ; 
the hallowed happiness of two made one, in Christ ; all these glow in 
his pages, with an attractive beauty beyond the common. All that 
imaginative and eloquent account of the brain and its great faculty, 
we would take, whole, if we could.... If high thoughts, in glowing 
words, be noble, is not this which we have just read ?. . . .One meets, 
continually, in this poem, such passages as the following ; and one 
such, even, would show the fine skill and glowing power of the writer. . 

" The second book whose title stands at the head of this article — 
the Sialxit Mater — is a translation with very interesting comments. . . . 
Like most poets, the author of The Microcosm writes prose beauti- 



fully, and the reader will never find, in the prose of these volumes, 
anything but what is interesting. In the poem and remarks which 
accompany the Stabat Mater is the utmost justness of criticism, full- 
ness of information, and gracefulness of expression. If as much can 
be learned, elsewhere, of the origin and character, and history of that 
hymn, we may safely say that it can nowhere be learned so pleas- 
antly. These parts of the book, like the corresponding parts of the 
book on the Dies Ira\ we hold to be especially valuable." — Rev. Robert 
Lowell, D. D. {The Church Monthly). 

" Dr. Coles has applied a want and done a graceful work in The 
Micivcosm. What the flower or babbling stream is to Wordsworth, 
that is the stranger, more complex, and more beautiful human frame 
to our author. In its organs, its powers, its aspirations, and its 
passions, he finds ample theme for song. . . Everywhere the rhythm is 
flowing and easy, and no scholarly man can peruse the work without 
a glance of wonder at the varied erudition, classical, poetical, and 
learned, that crowds its pages, and overflows in foot-notes. And 
through the whole is a devout religious tone and a purity of purpose 
worthy of all praise." — N'ezvark Daily Advertiser. 

"Dr. Coles' researches, made so lovingly and conscientiously in 
his special field of poetical scholarship, have given him a distinct and 
most enviable position among American authors. W^e of the younger 
sort learn a lesson of reverent humility from the pure enthusiasm 
with which he approaches and handles his noble themes. The ' tone ' 
of all his works is perfect. He is so thoroughly in sympathy with 
his subjects that the lay reader instantly shares his feeling ; and there 
is a kind of ' white light ' pervading the whole — prose and verse — 
which at any time tranquilizes and purifies the mind." — Ed/niind C. 
Stedmaa. 

" I have finished the reading of The Alicrocosni, which has afforded 
me unmingled delight. It is really a remarkable poem, and has pas- 
sages of great beauty and power. It cannot fail to secure the admi- 
ration of all capable of appreciating it. Its ease, its exquisite finish, 
its vivid yet delicate and powerful imagery, and above all its sublime 
religious interest, entitle it to a very high place in our literature." — 
Rev. Robert Ttcrnbull, D. D. 

"The idea of The Microcosm is novel and daring, but it is worked 
out with great skill and delicacy. The Evangel is a work of piety 
and beauty. The Proem opens with strong, vigorous yet melodious 
verse." — John G. Whittier. 

" The Evangel in Verse, is the ripest fruit of the scholarship, 
taste and poetic talent of one of our accomplished students of Eng- 
lish verse, whose translations of Dies Ira- and other poems have made 
the name of Dr. Coles familiar in the literature of our day. In the 
work before us he has attempted something higher and better than 
any former essay of his skillful pen. He has rendered the Gospel 
story of our Lord and Saviour into verse, with copious notes, giving 



the largest amount of knowledge from critical authorities to justify 
and explain the readings and to illuminate the sacred narrative. . . . 
He excludes everything fictitious, and clings to the orthodox view of 
the character and mission of the God-man. The illustrations are a 
complete pictorial anthology. Thus the poet, critic, commentator 
and artist has made a volume that will take its place among the rare 
productions of the age, as an illustration of the genius, taste, and 
fertile scholarship of the author." — Rnv. S. Irenuus Friiiic, D. D. {The 
New York Observer). 

" The purpose of this volume would be usually regarded as beyond 
the scope of poetic composition. It aims to reproduce the scenes of 
the Gospel History in verse, with a strict adherence to the sacred nar- 
rative and no greater degree of imaginative coloring than would 
serve to present the facts in the most brilliant and impressive light. 
But the subject is one with which the author cherishes so profound a 
sympathy, as in some sense to justify the boldness of the attempt. 
The Oriental cast of his mind allures him to the haunts of sacred 
song, and produces a vital communion with the spirit of Hebrew 
poetry. Had he lived in the days of Isaiah or Jeremiah, he might 
have been one of the bards who sought inspiration ' at Siloa's brook 
that flowed fast by the oracle of God.' The present work is not the 
first fruits of his religious Muse, but he is already known to the lovers of 
mediaeval literature by his admirable translations of the Dies Irce. 
.... The volume is brought out in a style of unusual elegance, as 
it respects the essential requisites of paper, print and binding, while 
the copious illustrations will attract notice by their selection of the 
most celebrated works of the best masters." — George Ripley {The New 
York Tribune). 

" Tlie Evangel in Verse is a feast to the eye and ear and heart. The 
careful exegesis, the conscientious loyalty to the statements of the 
Holy Story, the sympathetic reproduction of a remote and Oriental 
past, the sacred insight into the meaning of the Peerless Career, the 
homageful yet manly, unsuperstitious reverence, the rhythm as melo- 
dious as stately, the frequent notes, opulent in learning and doc- 
trine and devotion, the illustrations deftly culled from whatever 
is choice in ancient and modern art, these are some of the many 
excellencies which give to The Evangel in Verse an immortal beauty 
and worth, adding it as another coronet for Him on whose brow are 
many diadems." — Rev. Geo. D. Board/nan, D. D. 

" I admire the skill which The Eva>igel displays in investing with 
rainbow hues the simple narrations of the Gospels. All, however, 
"who have read Dr. Coles' versions of the Dies hxv. and other Latin 
Hymns must be prepared to receive any new productions from his 
pen with high expectations. In these days when even the clerical 
office seems in many cases insufficient to protect from the present 
fashionable form of scepticism, it is a great satisfaction to see a man 
of science and a scholar adhering so faithfully to the simple Gospel." 
—Rev. Charles Hodge, D. D., LL. D. 



" Dr. Coles is plainly a man of a very religious heart and a deeply 
reverential mind. . . . Moreover he has so much learning in his 
favorite subject, and so much critical instinct and experience, that 
those who can relish honest thinking, and tender and most skillful 
and true deductions, accept his teaching and suggestion with a ready 
— sometimes surprised — sympathy and confidence. Add to all this, 
that he has the sure taste of a poet, and the warm and loving earnest- 
ness of a true believer in the redeeming Son of God, and the catho- 
lic spirit of one who knows with mind and heart that Christianity at 
its beginning was Christianity, and we have the man who can write 
such books as earnest Christian people will welcome and be thankful 

for In this new book he proposes ' that The Evangel ^Q\\\i& a 

poetic version, and verse by verse paraphrase, so far as it goes, of 
the Four Gospels, anciently and properly regarded as one.' He 
makes an exquisite plea, in his preface, for giving leave to the glad 
words to rejoice at the Lord's coming in the Flesh, for which all other 

beings and things show their happiness In the notes the 

reader will find (if he have skill for such things) a treasure-house, in 
which everything is worthy of its place. Where he has offered new 
interpretations, or set forth at large interpretations not generally re- 
ceived or familiar, he modestly asks only to have place given him, 
and gives every one free leave to differ. Everywhere there is the 
largest and most true-hearted charity. . . . The reader cannot open 
anywhere without finding in these notes, if he be not wiser or more 
learned than ourselves, a great deal that he never saw, or never saw 
so well set forth before." — Rev. Robert Lowell, D. D. (^Church Monthly). 

"There is a kind of straightforwai'd simplicity about the poetical 
paraphrases which reminds one of the homelier but still always inter- 
esting verses which John Bunyan sprinkles like drops of heavenly 
dew along the pages of the Pilgrim's Progress. The illustrations 
add much to the work, in the way of ornament, and aid to the imag- 
ination. One among them is of terrible power, as it seems to me, 
such as it would be hard to show the equal of in the work of any 
modern artist. I mean Holman Hunt's ' Scapegoat.' There is a 
whole Theology in that picture. It haunts me with its fearful sugges- 
tiveness like a nightmare. I find The Evangel an impressive and 
charming book. It does not provoke criticism — it is too devout, too 
sincere, too thoroughly conscientious in its elaboration to allow of fault- 
finding or fault-hunting." — Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

" I have read a considerable part of The Eva)!gel and with pleasure 
and satisfaction. The versification of the Lord's Prayer is both an 
expansion of the sense and a commentary. The thought has often 
occurred to me what a world of meaning is there wrapped up, and 
that meaning is admirably brought out." — William C. Bryant. 






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